/ 



^ 



/ 



JkB^lll 



S 0^/ 



//f 



TO 



AN ESSAY 



ON THE 



PRXNCXFLE or POPI7Z.J1TZON, 



&c. &c. 



BY T. R. MALTHTJS, A. itt. 

Late Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and Professor of W story 
and Political Economy in the East- India College^ Hertfordshire. 



FIRST AMERICAJV EDITIOJV. 




GEORGETOWN, D. C. 

PUBLISHED BY CHARLES CRUIKSHANK, 
Rind's Press — Congress-Street. 

1831. 



J^y 



C03»T^]N'TS, 



BOOK II. 



<>/ the Checks to Pojndation in the Different slates of Modern Eu- 
rope. (Continued.) 

■HAP. Page 

I. Of the Checks to Population in France (continued) ... 5 
VII. Of the Checks to Population in England (continued) ... 13 

BOOK III. 

Of the Different systems or Expedients which have been Proposed or 
have prevailed in society, as they affect the evils arising from the 
Principle of Pojjulation. (Continued) 

OiiAP. Page. 

II. Of Systems of Equalitj' (continued) 30 

IV. Of Emigration (continued) 4j[ 

VI. Of Poor-Laws (continued) 43 

VIII. Of the Agricultural System 68 

IX. Of the Commercial System 77 

X. Of tlie Systems of Agriculture and Commerce combined 90 

XI. Of Cc.rnrLaws. Bounties upon Exportation, ...... ]05 

XII. Of Corn-Laws. Restrictions upon Importation 127 

XIII. Of increasing Wealth, as it affects the .Condition of the 

Poor ,{ J49 

XIV. Liencral Observations (continued) ./,' 167 

BOOK IV. 

tf ourfiitvre Prospects Respecting the retnmal or mitigation of the 
evils Arising from thf Principle of Population: (Coatinued) 

^^"A"- Page. 
VI. Effects of the Knowledge of the principal Cause of Pover- 
ty on Civil Liberty (continued) I77 

XII. Different Plans of improving the Condition of the Poor 

considered, (continued,) . . • 184 

Appendix . , . . , 201 



AED'TIOXS, 



BOOK II.— CHAPTER VII. 

fTo follow page 447, Vol. 1, American Edition of 1809 ; and pag«k 
448, Vol, 1, London Edition of 1S07.] 

Of the checks to Population in France. ( Continued.) 

I have not thought it advisable to alter the conjectural 
calculations and suppositions of the preceding chapter 
on account of the returns of the prefects for the year 
IX, as well as some returns published since by the go- 
vernment in 1813, having given a smaller proportion of 
births than I had thought probable : first, because these 
returns do not contain the early years of the revolution, 
when the encouragement to marriage and the proportion of 
births might be expected to be the greatest ; and second- 
ly, because they still seem fully to establish the main fact, 
which it was the object of the chapter to account for, 
namely, the undiminished population of France, notwith- 
standing the losses sustained during the revolution; al- 
though it may have been effected rather by a decreased 
proportion of deaths than an increased proportion of 
births. 

According to the returns of the year IX, the propor- 
tion of the births, deaths, and marriages, to the whole 
population, are as follow : 
B 



ESSAY ON Book U 

Checks to Population 



Births. Deaths. Marriages. 

1 in 33 I in 38| 1 in 157*. 

But these are, in fact, only the proportions of one year, 
from which no certain inference can be drawn. They are 
also applied to a population between three and four mil- 
lions greater than was contained in ancient France, which 
population may have always had a smaller proportion of 
births, deaths and marriages; and further, it appears 
highly probable from some of the statements in the Ana- 
f. lyse des Proces Verhaux., that the registers had not been 
very carefully kept. Under these circumstances, they 
cannot be considered as proving what the numbers im- 

ply- 
In the year XL, according to the Statistique Elemen- 
taire, by Peuchet, published subsequently to his Essai^ 
an inquiry was instituted under the orders of M. Chap- 
tal for the express purpose of ascertaining the average 
proportion of births to the population ;t and such an in- 
quiry, so soon after the returns of the year IX.. affords a 
<;lear proof that these returns were not considered by the 
minister as correct. In order to accomplish the object 
in view, choice was made of those communes in 30 de- 



*See a valuable note of M. Prevost of Geneva to his translation of 
this work, vol. ii. p. 8S. M. Prevost thinks it probable that there are 
omissions in the returns of the births, deaths and marriages for the 
year TX. He further shews that the proportion of the population to 
the square league for Old France should be 1014, and not 1086. But 
if there is reason to believe that there are omissions in the registers, 
and that the population is made too great, the real proportions will be 
essentially different from those which are her* given. 

fP. 831, Paris. 1805. 



Chap. Vn. POPULATION. 



In Fiance. (Continued.) 



partments distributed over the whole surface of France, 
which were likely to afford the most accurate returns. — 
And these returns for the years VIII., IX., and X., gave 
a proportion of births as 1 in 28|^^ ; of deaths, as 1 in 
30y|o ■) ^^^ of marriages, as 1 in 132yJ|^. 

It is observed by M. Peuchet, that the proportion of 
population to the births is here much greater than had 
been formerly assumed, but he thinks that, as this calcu- 
lation had been made from actual enumerations, it should 
be adopted in preference. 

The returns published by the government in 1813 
make the population of ancient France 28,786,911, 
which, compared with 28,000.000, the estimated popu- 
lation of the year IX, shew an increase of about 800,000 
in the 11 years irom 1802 to 1813. 

No returns of marriages are given, and the returns of 
births and deaths are given only for fifty departments. 

In these fifty departments, during the ten years begin- 
ning with 1802 and ending with 1811, the whole number 
of births amounted to 5,478,669, and of deaths to 
4,696,857, which, on a population of 16,710,719, indi- 
cates a proportion of births as 1 in 30|, and of deaths 
as 1 in 35|. 

It is natural to suppose that these fifty departments 
were chosen on account of their shewing the greatest in- 
crease. They contain, indeed, nearly the whole increase 
that had taken place in all the departments from the time 
of the enumeration in the year IX. ; and consequently 
the population of the other departments must have been 



^ ESSAY ON Book II. 



Checks to Population 



■almost stationary. It may furtlier be reasonably conjec- 
tured that the returns of marriages were not publislied 
on account of their being considered as unsatisfactory, 
and shewing a diminution of marriages, and an increased 
proportion of illegitimate births. 

From these returns, and the circumstances accompa- 
nying them, it may be concluded, that whatever might 
have been the real proportion of births before the revo- 
lution, and for the six or seven subsequent years, when 
the manages prematures are alluded to in the Proces Vcr- 
baux, and proportions of births as 1 in 21, 22, and 23, 
are mentioned in the Statistique Generale, the propor- 
tions of births, deaths and marriages, are now all consi- 
derably less than they were formerly supposed to be * 

It has been asked, whether, if this fact be allowed, it 
does not clearly follow that the population was incorrect- 
ly estimated before the revolution, and that it has been 
diminished rather than increased since 1782? To this 
question 1 should distinctly answer, that it does not fol- 
low. It has been seen, in many of the preceding chap- 
ters, ihat the proportions of births, deaths and marriages, 
are extremely different in different countries, and there 
3S the strongest reason for believing that they are very 



*In the year 1792 a law was passed extremely favorable to early 
jnarriaojes. This was repealed in the year IX., and a law substituted 
which threw e;reat obstacles in the way of marriage, accordina; to 
Peuchet, (p. 234.) These two laws will assist in accountinsj for a 
smaH proportion of births and marriages in the ten years previous to 
1813. consistently with the possibility of a large proportion in the 
first six or seven years after the commencement of the revolution. 



Chap rn. POPULATION, A 



In Fiance. (Continued.) 



different in the same country at diiTerent periods, and un- 
der dilferent circumstances. 

That changes of this kind liave taken place in Swit- 
zerland has appeared to be almost certain. A similar ef- 
fect from increased healthiness in our own country may 
be considered as an established fact. And if we give 
any credit to the best authorities that can be collected on 
the subject, it can scarcely be doubted that the rate of 
mortality has diminished during ihe last one or two hun- 
dred years, in almost every country in Europe. There 
is nothing, therefore, that ought to surprise us in the mere 
fact of the same population being kept up, or even a de- 
cided increase taking place, under a smaller proportion 
ol' births, deatlis and marriages. And the only question 
is, whether the actual circumstances of France seem to 
render such a change probable. 

Now it is generally agreed, that the condition of the 
lower c:« .sses of people in France before the revolution 
was very wretched. The wages of labour were about 
20 sous, or ten pence, a day, at a time when the wages 
of labour in England were nearly seventeen pence, and 
the price of wheat of the same quality in the two coun- 
tries was not very different. Accordingly, Arthur Young 
represents the labouring classes of France, just at the 
commencement of the revolution, as "76 per cent, worse 
fed, worse clothed, and worse supported, both in sickness 
and in health, than the same classes m England."* And 



*youi;g a Travels in France* vol. i. p. 437^, 



10 ESSAY ON Book IL 



Checks to Population 



though this statement is perhaps rather too strong, and 
sutiicient allowance is not made for the real difference of 
prices, yet his work every where abounds with observa- 
tions which shew the depressed condition of the labour- 
ing cVaUqs in France at that time, and imply the pressure of 
the population very hard against the limits of subsistence. 

On the other hand, it is universally allowed that the 
condition of the French peasantry has been decidedly im- 
proved by the revolution and the division of the national 
domains. All the writers who advert to the subject no- 
tice a considerable rise in the price of labour, partly oc- 
casioned by the extension of cultivation; and partly by 
the demands of the army. In the Statistique Elemen- 
taire of Peuchet, common labour is stated to have risen 
from 20 to 30 sous,* while the price of provisions ap- 
pears to have remained nearly the same; and Mr. Bir- 
beck, in his late Agricultural Tour in France,t says that 
the price of labour without hoard is twenty pence a clay, 
and that provisions of all kinds are full as cheap again as 
in England. This would give the French labourer the 
same command of subsistence as an English labourer 
would have with three shillings and four pence a day. — 
But at no time were the wages of common day labour in 
England so high as three shillings and four pence. 

Allowing for some errors in these statements, they are 
evidently sufficient to establish a very marked improve- 
ment in the condition of the lower classes of people in 

'P.391. iP. 13. 



C/iap. VII. POPULATION. 11 

In France. (Continued.) 

France. But it is next to a physical impossibility that 
such a relief from, the pressure of distress should take 
place without a diminution in the rate of mortality ; and 
if this diminution m the rate of mortality has not been 
accompanied by a rapid increase of population, it must 
necessarily have been accompanied by a smaller propor- 
tion of births. In the interval between 1 802 and 1813, 
the population seems to have increased, but to have 
increased slowly. Consequently, a smaller proportion of 
births, deaths and marriages, or the more general opera- 
tion of prudential restraint, is exactly what the circum- 
stances would have led us to expect. There is perhaps 
no proposition more incontrovertible than this, that, in 
two countries, in which the rate of increase, the natural 
healthiness of climate, and the state of towns and manu- 
factures are supposed to be nearly the same, the one in 
which the pressure of poverty is the greatest will have 
the greatest proportion of births, deaths and marriages. 

It does not then, by any means, follow, as has been 
supposed, that because, since 1802 the proportion of 
births in France has been as 1 in 30, Necker ought to 
have used 30 as his multiplier instead of 25|. It the 
representations given of the state of the labouring clas- 
ses in France before and since the revolution be in any 
degree near the truth, as the march of the population in 
both periods seems to have been nearly the same, the 
present proportion of births could not have been applica- 
ble at the period when Necker wrote. At the same time 
it is by no means improbable that he took too low a mul- 



n rfeSAY ON POPULATION. Book IL 

Checks to Population in France. (Continued.) 

tiplier. It is hardly credible, under all circumstances, 
that the population of France should have increased in the 
interval between 1785 and 1802 so mucha-^ from 25 1 mil- 
lions to 28. But if we allow that the multiplier might at 
that time have been 27 instead of 25f, it will be allow- 
ing- as much as is in any degree probable, and yet this 
will imply an increase of nearly two millions from 1785 
to 1813, an increase far short of the rate that has taken 
place in England, but still sufficient amply to shew the 
force of the principle of population in overcoming- ob- 
stacles apparently the most powerful. 

\\ ith regard to the question of the increase of births 
in the six or seven first years after the commencement of 
the revolution, there is no probability of its ever being 
determined. In the confusion of the times, it is scarce- 
ly possible to suppose that the registers should have been 
regularly kept; and as they were not collected in the 
year IX., there is no chance of their being brought for- 
ward inja correct state at a subsequent period. 



BOOK ir.— CHAP. VII. 



[To follow Page 485, Vol. 1, American Edition, 1809 ; and page 48U 
Vol. 1, London Edition, 1807.] 

Of the Checks to Population in England. (Continued.) 

The returns of the Population Act in 1811 undouhted- 
ly presented extraordinary results. They shewed a great- 
ly accelerated rate of progress, and a greatly improved 
healthiness of the people, notwithstanding the increase 
of the towns and the increased proportion of the popu- 
lation engaged in manufacturing employments. They 
thus furnished another striking instance of the readiness 
with which population starts forwards, under almost any 
weight, when the resources of a country are rapidly in« 
creasing. 

The amount of the population in 1 800, together with 
the proportions of births, deaths and marriages, given in 
the registers, made it appear that the population had been 
for some time increasing at a rate rather exceeding what 
would result from a proportion of births to deaths as 4 
to 3, with a mortality of 1 in 40. 

These proportions would add to the population of a 
country every year y^^th part ; and if they were to 
continue, would, according to table ii, page 168, douhle 
the population in every successive period of 83 1 years. 
This is a rate of progress which in a rich and well f)eo- 
pled country might reasonably be expected to diminish 
rather than to iiicrease. But instead of any such diminu- 



14 ESSAY ON Book. 11. 



Checks to Population 



lion, it appears that as far as 1810 it had been considera- 
bly accelerated. 

In 1810, according to the returns from each parish, 
with the addition of ^^th for the soldiers, sailors, &c.the 
population of England and Wales was estimated at 10,- 
488,000,* which, compared with 9,168,000. the popula- 
tion of 1800 estimated in a similar manner, shews an in- 
crease in the ten years of 1 ,320,000. 

The registered baptisms during ten years were 2,878,- 
906, and the registered burials 1,950,189, The excess 
of the births is therefore 928,717, which falls very con- 
siderably short of the increase shewn by the two enume- 
rations. This deficiency could only be occasioned either 
by the enumeration in 1800 being below the truth, or by 
the inaccuracy of the registers of births and burials, or 
by the the operation of these two causes combined ; as 
it is obvious that, if the population in 1 800 were estima- 
ted correctly, and the registers contained all the births 
and burials, the difference must exceed rather than fall 
short of the real addition to the population; that is, it 
would exceed it exactly by the number of persons dying 
abroad in the army, navy, &c. 

There is reason to believe that both causes had a share 
in producing the effect observed, though the latter, that 
is, the inaccuracy of the registers, in much the greatest 
degree. 



*See the Population Abstracts published in 1811, and the valuable 
Prelimmary Observations by Mr. Hickman. 



Chap. VIL POPULATION. 15 



In England (Continued.) 



In estimating the population throughout the century,* 
the births have been assumed to bear the same proportion 
at all times to the number of people. It has been seen that 
such an assumption might often lead to a very incorrect es- 
timate of the population of a country at different and dis- 
tant periods. As the population, however, is known to have 
increased with great rapidity from 1800 to 1810, it is 
probable that the proportion of births did not essentially 
diminish during that period. But if, taking the last enu- 
meration as correct, we compare the births of 1810 with 
the births of 1 800, the result will imply a larger popula- 
tion in 1800 than is given in the enumeration for that year. 
Thus the average of the last five years' births to 1 810 
is 297,000, and the average of the five years' births to 
1800 is 263,000. But 297,000 is to 263,000 as 10,488,- 
000, the population of 1810, to 9,287,000, which must, 
therefore, have been the population in 1 800, if the pro- 
portion of births be as'iumed to be the same, instead of 
9,168,000, the result of the enumeration. It is further 
to be observed that the increase of population from 1795 
to 1 800 is, according to the table, unusually small, com- 
pared with most of the preceding periods of five years. 
And a slight inspection of the registers will shew that the 
proportion of births for five years from 1795, including 
the diminished numbers of 1796 and 1800, was more 
likely to be below than above the general average. For 



*See a table of the population throughout the century, in page 25, 
of the Preliminary Observations to the Population Abstracts printed 
in 1811. 



16 ESSAY ON Book. It. 



*= 



Checks to Population 



these reasons, together with the general impression on 
the subject, it is probable that the enumeration in 1800 
was short of the truth, and perhaps the population at that 
time may be safely taken at as much as 9,287 ,000 at the 
least, or about 1 1 9,000 greater than the returns gave it. 

But even upon this supposition, neither the excess of 
births above the deaths in the whole of the ten years, nor 
the proportion of births to deaths, as given in the regis- 
ters, will account for an increase from 9,287,000 to 10,- 
488,000. Yet it is not probable that the increase has 
beea much less than is shewn by the proportion of births 
at the two periods. Some allowance must therefore ne- 
cessarily be made for omissions in the registers of births 
and deaths, which are known to be very far from correct, 
particularly the registers of births. 

There is reason to believe that there are few or no 
omissions in the registers of marriages ; and if we sup- 
pose the omissions in the births to be one sixth, this 
will preserve a proportion of the births to the marriages 
as 4 to 1 , a proportion which appears to be satisfactorily 
established upon other grounds ;* but if we are warrant- 
ed in this supposition, it will be fair to take the omis- 
sions in the deaths at such a number as will make the ex- 
cess of the births above the deaths in the ten years ac- 
cord with the increase of population estimated by the 
increase of the births. 

The registered births in the ten years, as was mention- 



*See the Preliminary Oiservations on the Population Abstracts, p. 
axvi. 



Chap. VII. POPULATION 11 

In England (Continued.) 



ed before, are 2,878,906, which increased by one sixth, 
will be 3.358,723. The registered burials are 1,950,- 
189, which increased by one twelfth, will be 2,112,704. 
The latter subtracted from the former, will give 1,246,- 
019 for the excess ot births, and the increase of popula- 
tion in the ten years, which number added to 9,287,000, 
the corrected population of 1800, will give 10,533,019, 
forty-five thousand above the enumeration of 1810, leav- 
ing almost exactly the number which in the course of the 
ten years appears to have died abroad, This number 
has been calculated generally at about 4^^ per cent, on the 
male births ; but in the present case there are the means 
of ascertaining more accurately the number of males dy- 
ing abroad during the period in question. In the last 
population returns the male and female births and deaths 
are seperated ; and from the excess of the male births 
above the female births, compared with the male and fe- 
male deaths, it appears that forty-five thousand males 
died abroad.* 

The assumed omissions, therefore, in the births and 
burials seem to answer so far very well. 

It remains to see whether the same suppositions will 
give such a proportion of births to deaths, with such a 
rate of mortality, as will also account for an increase of 
numbers in ten years from 9 287,000 to 10,488,000. 



*See Population Abstracts, ISll, p. 196 of the Parish Register Ab- 
stract. 

It is certainly very extraordinary that a smaller proportion o! males 
than usual should appear to have died abroad from 1800 to 1810 ; but 
as the registers for this period seem to prove it, I have made my c'alca- 
lations accordingly. 



18 ESSAY ON Book. IL 



Checks to Population 



If we divide the population of 1810 by the average 
births of the preceding five years, with the addition of 
one-sixth, it will appear that the proportion of births to 
the population is as 1 to 30. But it is obvious that if the 
population be increasing with some rapidity, the average 
of births for five years, compared with the population at 
the end of such period, must give the proportion of 
births too small. And further, there is always a proba- 
bility that a proportion which is correct for five years 
may not be correct for ten years. In order to obtain the 
true proportion applicable to the progress of population 
during the period in question, we must compare the an- 
nual average of the births for the whole term, with the 
average or mean population of the whole term. 

The whole number of births, with the addition of one- 
sixth, is, as before stated, 3,358,723, and the annual ave- 
rage during the ten years 335,872. The mean popula^ 
tion, or the mean between 10,488,000 (the population of 
1810) and 9,287,000 (the corrected population of 1800) 
is 9,887,000; and the latter number divided by the 
average of the births will give a proportion of births to 
the population as 1 to rather less than 29|, instead of 30, 
which will make a considerable difference. 

In the same manner, if we divide the population of 
1810 by the average of the burials for the preceding five 
years, with the addition of one-twelfth, the mortality 
will appear to be as 1 in nearly 50 ; but upon the same 
grounds as with regard to the births, an average of the 
burials for five years, compared with the population at 
the end of such term, must give the proportion of burials. 



Chap.VIL POPULATION. 19 

In England (Continued.) 

too small ; and further, it is known, in the present case, 
that the proportion of burials to the population by no 
means continued the same during the whole time. In 
fact, the registers clearly shew an improvement in the 
healthiness of the country, and a diminution of mortality 
progressively through the ten years; and while the ave- 
rage number of annual births increased from 263,000 to 
297,000, or more than one-eighth, the burials increased 
only from 192,000 to 196,000, or one-48th. It is obvi- 
ously necessary then for the purpose in view to compare 
the average mortality with the average or mean popula- 
tion. 

The whole number of burials in the ten years, with 
the addition of one- 12th, is, as was before stated 2,1 12,- 
704, and the mean population 9,887,000. The latter, 
divided by the former, gives the annual average of burials 
compared with the population as 1 to rather less than 47. 
But a proportion of births as 1 to 29|, with a proportion 
of deaths as 1 to 47, will add yearly to the numbers of a 
country one-79th of the whole, and in ten years will 
increase the population from 9,287,000 to 10,531,- 
000, leaving 43,000 for the deaths abroad, and agreeing 
very nearly with the calculation founded on the excess 
of births.* 



*A general formula for estimating the population of a country 
at any distance from a certain period, under given circumstances 
of births and mortality, may be found in Bridge's Elements of Alge- 
bra, p. 225, 

Log. A =s= log. P -f- n X log. 1 -\- m — b 



2^0 ESSAY ON Book It 

' . \ 

Checks to Population, 



We may presume, therefore, that the assumed omis- 
sions in the births and deaths from 1800 to 1810 are not 
far from the truth. 

But if these omissions of one-sixth for the births and 
one twelfth for the burials, may be considered as nearly 
right for the period between 1800 and 1810, it is proba^ 
ble that they may be applied without much danger of er- 
ror to the period between 17 :0 and 1800, and may serve 
to correct some of the conclusions founded on the births 
alone. Next to an accurate enumeration, a calculation 
irom the excess of births above the deaths is the most to 
be depended upon. Indeed when the registers contain 
all the births and deaths, and these are the means of set- 
im.i: out from a known population, it is obviously the same 
as an actual enumeration; and where a nearly correct al- 



A representing the required population at the end of any number of 
years; n the number of years; P the actual population at the given 

period; -' the proportion of yearly deaths to the population, or ratio 

m 

of mortality; i the proportion of yearly births to the population, or' 

ratio of births. 

In the present case, P = 9,287,000 ; n = 10 , m = 47 ; b = . 9| 

m — b 



= i^ and 1 + m — b 



m b "II 

ra b 
l^he log. of «» =00546; .• . n x log. l-j- m — b 

m a 
5= 05460, Log. P. =: 6.96787, which adde'^ to 05460 as 7.02247 the 
tog. of A, the number answering to wliich is lOjSSljOOO 



Chap. VII. POPULATION. 21 

In England (Continued.) 

lovvance can be made for the omissions in the registers, 
and for the deaths abroad, a much nearer approximation 
to it may be obtained in this way than from the propor- 
tion of births to the whole population, which is known to 
be liable to such frequent variations. 

The whole number of births returned in the twenty 
years, from 1780 to 1800, is 5,014,899, and of the bu- 
rials 3,840,455. If we add one-sixth to the former, 
and one-twelfth to the latter, the two numbers will be 
5,850,715; and 4,160,492, and subtracting the latter 
from the former, the excess of the births above the deaths 
will be 1,690,223. Adding this excess to the population 
of 1780, as calculated in Mr. Rickman's tables, from the 
births, which is 7,953,000, the result will be 9,643 000, 
a number which, after making a proper allowance for the 
deaths abroad, is very much above the population of 1800 
as before corrected, and still more above the number 
which is given in the table as the result of the enumera- 
tion. 

But if we proceed upon the safer ground just muggest- 
ed, and taking the corrected population of 1 800 as es- 
tablished, subtract from it the excess of the birtbs du- 
ring the twenty years, diminished by the probable num- 
ber of deaths abroad, which in this case will be about 
124,000, we shall have the number 7,721,000 for the 
population of 1780, instead of 7,953,000; and there is 
ffood reason to believe that this is nearer tbe truth ;• 



*The very small difference between the population of 17S(Vand 
1785, as given in the table, seems strongly to imply that one of the 
two estimates is erroneous. 

D 



22 ESSAY ON Book H. 

Checks to Population 

and that not only in 1780, but in many of the intermediate 
periods, the estimate from the births has represented the 
population as greater, and increasing more irregularly, 
than would be found to be true, if recourse could be had 
to enumerations. This has arisen from the proportion of 
births to the population being variable, and, on the whole, 
greater in 1780, and at other periods during the course 
of the twenty years than it was in 1800. 

In 1795, for instance, the population is represented to 
be 9,055,000, and in 1800, 9,168.000;* but if we sup- 
pose the first number to be correct, and add the excess of 
the births above the deaths in the five intervening years, 
even without making any allowance for omissions in the 
registers, we shall find that the population in 1800 ought 
to have been 9,398,000 instead of 9,168,000; or if we 
take the number returned for 1 800 as correct, it will ap- 
pear- by subtracting from it the excess of births during 
the ; ve preceding years, that the population in 1795 
ought to have been 8,825,000, instead of 9,055,000.— 
Hence it follows, that the estimate from the births in 1795 
cannot be correct. 

To obtain the population at that period, the safest way 
is to apolv the before-mentioned corrections to the regis- 
ters, and, havina: made the allowance of 4:} per cent, on 
the male hirths for the deaths abroad, subtract the re- 
mainina: excess of the births from the corrected returns 
of 1800. The result in this case will be 8.831,086 for 



*Fopulation Abstracts, 1811. Preliminary View, p< xxV. 



Chap. VIL 



POPULATION. 



U 



In England. (Continued.) 



the population of 1795, implying an increase in the five 
years of 455,91 4, instead of only 113,000, as shewn by 
the table calculated from the births. 

If we proceed in the same manner with the period from 
1790 to 1795, we shall find that the excess of births 
above the deaths (after the foregoing corrections have 
been applied, and an allowance has been made of 44 per 
cent, upoii the male births for the deaths abroad.) will be 
415.669, which, subtra* te' from 8,831,086, the popula- 
tion of 1795, as above estimated, leaves 8,415,417 for 
the population of 1790. 

Upon the same principle, the excess of the births above 
the deaths in the interval between 1785 and 17 90 will tur» 
out to be 416,776. The population in 1785 will there- 
fore be 7,998,641. And, in like manner, the excess of 
the births above the deaths in the interval between 1780 
and 1785 will le 377,544, and the population in 1780 
7,721,097. 

The two tables therefore, of the population, from 
1780 to 1810, will stand thus:— 



Table, calculated from the births 
alone, in the Preliminary Ob- 
servations to the Population Ab- 
stracts printed in 1811. 



Population 
in 

1780 
1785 
1790 
1795 
1800 
1805 
1810 



7,953,000 
8,016,000 
8,675,000 
9,055,000 
9,168,000 
9,828,000 
10,488,000 



Table, calculated from the excess 
of the births above the deaths, 
after an allowance made for the 
omissions in the registers, aad 
the deaths abroad. 

Population 



1780 
1785 
1790 
1795 
1800 
1805 
1810 



7,721.000 
7,998,000 
8,415,000 
8,831,000 
9,287,000 
9,837,000 
10,488,000 



U ESSAY ON Book U 

•'I ' ' -- ■ — 

Checks to Population 

In the first table, or table calculated from the births 
alone, the additions made to the population in each pe- 
riod of five years are as follows : — 

From 1780 to 1785 63,000 
From 1785 to 1790 659,000 
From 1790 to 1795 380,000 
From 1795 to 1800 113,000 
From 1800 to 1805 660,000 
From 1805 to 1810 660,000 

In the second table, or table calculated from the excess 
of the births above the deaths, after the proposed correc- 
tions have been applied, the additions made to the popu- 
lation in each period of five years will stand thus : — 
From 1780 to 1785 277,000 
From 1785 to 1790 417,000 
From 1790 to 1795 416,000 
From 1795 to 1800 456,000 
From 1800 to 1805 550,000 
From 1805 to 1810 651,000 
The progress of the population, according to this latter 
table, appears much more natural and probable than ac- 
cording to the former. 

It is in no respect likely that, in the interval between 
1780 and 1785, the increase of population should only 
have been 63,000, and in the next period 659,000; or 
that, in the interval between 1795 and 1800, it should 
have been only 113,000, and in the next period 
660,000. But it is not necessary to dwell on pro- 
babilities ; the most distinct proofs may be brought 
to shew that, whether the new table be right or not, the 
old table must be wrong. Without any allowance being 



Chsip. VIL POPULATION. 25 



In England (Continued.) 



made for omissionm the registers, the excess of the births 
above the deaths in the period from 1780 to 1785, shews 
an increase of 1 93,000, instead of 63,000. And on the 
other hand, no allowances for omissions in the registers, 
that could w\\h the slightest degree of probability be 
supposed, would make the excess of births above the 
deaths in the period from 1785 to 1790 equal to 659,000. 
Making no allowance for omissions, this excess only a- 
mouats to 317,406 ; and if we were to suppose the omis- 
sions in the births one 4th, instead of one 6th, and that 
there were no omissions in the registers oi burials, and 
that no one died abroad, the excess would still fall short 
of the number stated by many thousands. 

The same results would follow, if we were to 
estimate the progress of population during these periods 
by the proportion of births to deaths, and the rate of mor- 
tality. In the first period the increase would turn out to 
Be very mush greater than the increase stated, and in the 
other very much less. 

Similar observations may be made with regard to some 
of the other periods in the old table, particularly that be- 
tween 1795 and 1800, which has been already noticed. 

It will be found on the other hand that, if the propor- 
tion of births to deaths during each period be estimated 
with tolerable accuracy and compared with the mean po- 
pulation, the rate of the progress of the population deter- 
mined by this criterion will, in every period, a^ree very 
nearly with the rate of progress determined by the excess 
of the births above the deaths, after applying the propos- 
ed corrections. And it is further worthy of remark that, if 



«e ESSVV ox Book II 

Checks to Population 

«■■■'' " ' '■ ' ■■.*»■ 

the connections pix>posed sliouUi bo in some dti^reo inac<*' 
curate, as is pmbable, (he ern^-s arisuiij,- iVom aiiv such 
vjaaouracios are likely to be very much less eousiderable 
than those whioh must necesstjviily arise I'l^oin the assump- 
tion on which the old table is tbundeii ; aauuM y that the^ 
births boar at all tinu>' t!\o s;^mo proportion to the popu- 
lauon. 

Ol ooiirso I do no: nu\ni to vojoo t any estimate ot' popu- 
lation torau\l in t'uis wav, \vl\on no In'^ttor niatorials are 
to bo lound ; but, in the pivsont case, the registers ot" the 
burials as well as baptisms ai"e ^iveii every year, as tar 
back as 1781"), and those vo^isiei^, with the tirm ^i\nnul 
ol Uie last onunioranon to stand upon, ailoiil the moans 
of givinii- a fuovo oonooi Mblo ot' the population tVon^ 
nSO th.ui was betbre t"uvnishod. and of show inii- at the 
vsame time ilie uncertaituy oi' ostimatos from tlio births- 
alone, pariicularly with a view toilio pro^ross ot" popula- 
tion during pariieular j.>erio<ls. In estiniaiiui; tho \vholo 
population ot" a lar^o oouiitrv. t>\o or throo lunidred 
thousand aio not ot' uuioh unportanoo; but in ostiinatius^ 
the rate of increase during a period ot" ti\ t^ or ton vears, 
on erj\Tir to this amount is quite tatal. It will be allou'ed^ 
I ooni!eive, to make an essential ditloreuoe in our eonciu- 
sions respecting tht^ raio ot" iiici'ease for any fi\e veai-s 
which we may ti\ upon, whether the additiiMi made to 
the population during,' tho term in question is t>S.lXX"> oY 
an.OOO, I15,(HH1 or t:n>.000. o:)ii.000 or tHAXX). 

^^'uh ro^ard to the period ot" tho century previous 
10 nS(), as tlie registers ot* tlio l>aptisms and burials are 
not returned ior every yoai*, it is not possible to apply 



Chap. Vll rOPTTT.ATTON. ST 



III England (Continued.) 



\\\c same oonortidiis. And i( w\\\ he ohvious tluit, in 
the tal)le oalculalod from the births previous to this j)e- 
riod, when the registers are only given Ibr insidated years 
At some distance Irom eaeli other, very considerable 
errors may arise, not m(M( ly iVoni the varying pro[)ortion 
of the births to ilu^ jH>pul;\tu)n, on averages of five years, 
but from the individual y(\irs produeeil not re|)resenting 
with tolerablo rcivvrctness these averages.* A very 
slight iihuiee at the valuable^ tabl<> o'( baptisms, buri- 
als and marriages, given in the rreliminary Observations 
to the Population Abstraetsf-. will shew how very little 
dependence ought to be placed upon inference respect- 
ing the population drawn from the number of births, 
deaths or marriages in individual years. If, for instance, 
we were estimating the population in the two years I8(X) 
and 1801, compared with the two following yeais 1802 
and 180;], tVom thr proportion o1 marriages to the popula 
tion, assuming this ]>roportion to be always the same, it 
would ap[)ear that, it'the population in the tirst two veirs 
were nine millions, in the second two years imnv diitelj' 
succeeding it would he considerably above twe.lvp millions, 
and thus it would seem to have increased al)0 <' three 
millions, or more than one third, in this shoii interval. 
Nor would the result of an estimate, formed from the 
births for the two years 1800 and 1801 compared with 



*From tho one or ttio other of Ihoso c:nise!i. I li;u e tittle tloubt, tlwl 
the miiiilier-i in the t.>Me lor \HW ;mit 177l>, \vl>iili imply :^o riipiil iui 
inerease of population in that interval, i!o no' tear tlte jiroper relation 
to each other. It is probable thai the number eiven for 1770 is tOf» 
ffroaK fP. 20. 



28 ESSAY ON Book H. 

Checks to Population 

II III - , 

the two years 1803 and 1804, be materially different ; at 
least such an estimate would indicate an increase of two 
millions six hundred thousand in three years. 

The reader can hardly be surprised at these results, 
if he recollects that the births, deaths and marriages bear 
but a small proportion to the whole population ; and that 
consequently variations in either of these, which may take 
place from temporary causes, cannot possibly be accom- 
panied by similar variations in the whole mass of the pop- 
ulation. An increase of births o* one-third, which might 
occur in a single year, instead of increasing the popula- 
tion one-third, would only perhaps increase it one-eighti- 
eth or ninetieth. 

It follows therefore, as I stated in the last chapter, that 
the table of the population for the century previous to 
1780, calculated from the returns of the births alone, at the 
distance of ten years each, can only be considered as a 
very rough approximation towards the truth, in the ab- 
sence of better materials, and can scarcely in any degree 
be depended upon for the comparative rate of increase at 
particular periods. 

The population m 1810, compared with that of 1800, 
corrected as proposed in this cha{)ter, implies a less ra- 
pid increase than the difference between the two enumer- 
ations; and it has further appeared that the assumed 
proportion of births to deaths as 47 to 29| is rather below 
than above the truth. Yet this proportion is quite extra- 
ordinary for a rich and well-peopled territory. It would 
add to the population of a country one 79th every year, 
and were it to continue, would, according to table ii. p. 



■CJutp. Vn. POPULATION. 2^ 

Checks to Population in England. (Continued.) 
'-■ ■>-^* 

168 in this volume, double the number of inhabitants in 
less than fifty-five years. 

This is a rate of increase, which in the nature of things 
cannot be permanent. It has been occasioned by the 
stimulus of a greatly-increased demand for labour, com- 
bined with a greatly-increased power of production, 
both in agriculture and manufactures. These are the two 
elements necessary to form an effective encouragement 
to a rapid increase of population. A failure of either 
of these must immediately weaken the stimulus; and 
there is but too much reason to fear the failure of one of 
them at present. But what has already taken place is a 
striking illustration of the principle of population, and a 
proof that in spite of great towns, manufacturing occupa- 
tions, and the gradually-acquired habits of an opulent and 
luxuriant people, if the resources of a country will admit 
of a rapid increase, and if these resources, are so advin- 
tageously distributed as to occasion a constantly increas- 
ing demand for labour, the population will not fail to keep 
pace with them*. 



£ 



BOOS: ni— CHAP, n: 



(To follow Page 120 Vol. 2nd, American Edition 1809. And Page 4)5 
Vol. 2nd, London Edition 1807.] 

Of systems of Equality (continued.) 

It was suggested to me some years since by persons 
for whose judgment I have a high respect, that it might 
be advisable, in a new edition, to throw out the matter 
relative to systems of equality, to Wallace, Condorcet 
abd Godwin, as having in a considerable degree lost its 
interest, and as not being strictly connected with the main 
subject of the essay, which is an explanation and illustra- 
tion of the tlieory of population. But independently of 
its being natural for me to have some little partiality for 
that T>art of the work which led to those inquiries on whic^ 
the main subject rests ; I really think that there should 
be somewhere on record an answer to systems of equality' 
founded on the principle of population ; and perhaps such 
an answer is as appropriately placed, and is likely to 
have as much effect, among the illustrations and applica- 
tions o( the principle of population,as in any other situ- 
ation *o which it could be assigned. 

The appearances in all human societies, particularly in 
all those which are the furthest advanced in civilization 
an<- improvement, will ever be such, as to inspire super/ 
fic'al observers with a belief that a prodigious change 
for the better might be effected by the introduction of 
$ system of equality and of common property . They set 



€haj). II. ESSAY ON POPULATION. 



&i 



Of Systems of Equality. (Continued.) 



abundance in some quarters, and want in others ; and the 
natural and obvious remedy seems to an equal division of 
the produce. They see a prodigious quantity of human 
exertions wasted upon trivial, useless, and sometimes 
pernicious objects which might either be wholy saved or 
more effectively employed. They see invention after in- 
vention in machinery brought forward, which is .sje^ming 
ly calculated, in the most marked manner, to abate the 
surn of human toil. Yet with these apparent means of 
giving plenty, leisure and happiness to all, they still seie 
.the labours of the great mass of society undiminished, 
and their condition, if not deteriorated, in no very strik- 
ing and palpable manner improved. 

Under these circumstances, it cannot be a matter <jf 
wonder that proposals for systems of equality should be 
continually reviving. After periods when the subject has 
undergone a thorough discussion, or when some great ex- 
periment in improvement has failed, it is likely that the 
question should lie dormant for a time, and that, the opin- 
ions of the advocates of equality should be ranked among 
those errors which had passed away to be heard of no 
more. But it is probable that if the world were to last 
for any number of thousand years, systems of equality 
iXYPuld be among those errors,, which like the tunes of .a 
barrel organ, to use the illustration of Dugald Stewart^^ 
will never cease to return, at certain intervals. 

il am induced to make these remarks, and to add a little 
to what I have already said oii systen^s of equality, in- 



*Preliminary Diesertatioii to Supplement to the Encyclopsdiji Bri^ 
.t»nnica, p. 121, 



8^ ESSAY ON Book. lit 

Of Systems of Equality. (Continued.) 

Stead of leaving out the whole discussion, by a tendency 
to a revival of this kind at the present moment. 

A gentleman, for whom I have a very sincere respect 
Mr. Owen, of Lanark, has lately published a work enti- 
tled A JVew View of Society^ which is intended to prepare 
the public mind for the introduction of a system involv- 
ing a community of labour and of goods. It is also gen- 
erally known that an idea has lately prevailed among some 
of the lower classes of society, that the land is the peo- 
ple's farm, the rent ol which ought to be equally divided 
among them ; and that they have been deprived of the 
benefits which belong to them fronti this their natural in- 
heritance, by the injustice and oppression of their stew- 
ards, the landlords. 

Mr. Owen is, I believe, a man of real benevolence^ 
who has done much good ; and every friend to humanity 
must heartily wish him success in his endeavours to pro- 
cure an Act of Parliament for limiting the hours of work- 
ing among the children in the cotton manufactories, and 
preventing them from being employed at too early an 
age. He is further entitled to great attention on all sub- 
jects relating to education, from the experience and know- 
ledge which he must have gained in an intercourse of 
many years with two thousand manufacturers, and from 
the success which is said to have resulted from his modes 
of management. A theory professed to be founded on 
such experience is no doubt worthy of much more con- 
sideration than one formed in a closet. 

The claims to attention possessed by the author of the 
new doctrines relating to land are certainly very slender, 
and the doctrines themselves indicate a very great de.' 



<:hap, 11. POPULATION. 



Of Systems of Equality. (Continued.) 

■ ■ * ■ ■ 

gree of ignorance ; but the errors of the labouring clas. 
ses of society are always entitled to great indulgence and 
consideration. They are the natural and pardonable re- 
sults of their liability to be deceived by first appearances 
and by the arts of designing men, owing to the nature of 
their situation, and the scanty knowledge which in gene- 
ral falls to their share. And except in extreme cases, it 
must always be the wish of those who are better inform- 
ed, that they should be brought to a sense of the truth, 
rather by patience and the gradual diffusion of education 
and knowledge, than by any harsher methods. 

After what I have already said on systems of equality 
in the preceding chapters, I shall not think it necessary 
to enter into a long and elaborate refutation of these doc- 
trines. I merely mean to give an additional reason for 
leaving on record an answer to systems of equality, 
founded on the principle of population, together with 
*a concise re-statement of this- anwer for practical appli- 
cation. 

Of the two decisive arguments against such systems one 
is, the unsuitableness of a state of equality, both accor- 
ding to experience and theory, to the production of those 
stimulants to exertion which can alone overcome the na- 
tural indolence of man, and prompt him to the proper ■ 
cultivation of the earth and the fabrication of those conve 
niences and comforts which are necessary to his happi. 
ness. 

And the other, the inevitable and necessary poverty 
and misery in which every system of equality must short-v 
Ij terminate from the acknowledged tendency of the hu- 



34 ESSAY ON :Booh III. 



Of Systems of Equality. (Continued.) 



man race to increase faster than the means of subsistence^ 
unless such increase be prevented by means infinitely 
more crqel than those which result from the laws of pri» 
vate property, and the mpral obligation imposed on everj 
man by the commands of God and nature to support his 
own children. 

The first of these arguments has^ I confess, always a p^ 
peared to my own muid sutficiently conclusive. A state in 
which inequality of conditions offers the natural rewards of 
good conduct, and inspires widely and generally the hopes 
of rising and the fears of falling in society, is unques- 
tionably the best calculated to develope the energies and 
faculties of man, and the best suited to the exercise and 
improvement of human virtue.* And history, in feverj 
casie of equality that has yet occurred, has uniformly 
borne witness to the depressing and deadening effects 
which arise from the want of this stimulus. But still, 
perhaps, it may be true that neither experience nor the- 
ory on this subject is quite so decisive as to preclude all 
plausible arguments on the other side. It may be said 
that the instances which history records ot systems of 
equality really carried into execution are so few, and 
those in societies so little advanced from a state of bar- 
barism as to afford no fair conclusions relative to periods 
of civilization and improvement, that in other instances in 
ancient times, where approaches were made toward atole- 



*See this subject very ably treated in a work on the Records of the 
Creation, and the Moral Attributes of the Creator, by the Rev. John 
Bird Sumner, not long since published ; a worit of very great meri^ 
«bich I hope soon to see in af extensive rjrculatioa as it deserve?. 



Chap.n. POPULATION ^ 

Of Systems of Equality, (Continued.) 

rable equality of conditions, examples of considerablie 
energy of character in some lines of exertion are not 
unfrequent ; and that in modern times some societies, par- 
ticularly of Moravians, are known to have had much of 
their property in common without occasioning the des- 
truction of their industry. It may be said that allowing 
the stimulus of inequality of conditions to have been ne- 
cessary in order to raise irtan irom the indolence and apa- 
thy of the savage to the activity and intelligence of civi- 
lized life, it does not follow that the continuance of the 
same stimulus should be necessafry when this activity and* 
energy of mind has been once gained. It nlay then be 
allowable quietly to enjoy the benefit of a rt gimen which, 
like many other stimulants, having produced its propei' 
effect at a certain point must be left off, or exhaustion, 
disease and death will follow. 

These observations are certainly not of a nature to 
produce conviction in those who have studied the human 
(iharacter ; but they are to a certain degree plausible, and 
do not admit of so definite and decisive an answer as to 
make the proposal for an experiftie^nt- iu' modern times' 
utterly absurd and unreasonable. 

The peculiar advantage of the other argument against 
systems of equality, that which is founded on the prin- 
ciple of population, is, that it is not only still more gene- 
rally and uniformly confirmed by experience, in every 
age and m every pai*t of the world, but it is so pre-emi- 
■eiitly clear in theory, that no tolerably plausible answer 
can be given to it; and consequently no decent pretence 
can be brought forward for an experiment. The affair 
is a matter of the most simple calculation applied 



ESSAY ON Book. HI. 



Of Systems of Equality. (Continued.) 

to the known properties of land, and the propor- 
tions of births to deaths which takes place in al- 
most every country village. There are many pa- 
rishes in England, where, notwithstanding the actual dif- 
ficulties attending the support of a family which must 
necessarily occur in every well-peopled country, and ma- 
king no allowances for omissions in the registers, the 
births are to the deaths in the proportion of 2 to 1 . — 
This proportion, with the usual rate of mortality in coun- 
try places, of about 1 in 50, would continue doubling 
the population in 41 years, if there were no emigrations 
from the parish. But in any system of equality, f ither 
such as that proposed by Mr. Owen, or in parochial 
partnerships in land, not only would there be no means 
of emigration to other parishes with any prosnect of re- 
lief, but tbe rate of increase at first would, of course, be 
much greater than in the present state of society. What 
then, I would ask, is to prevent the division of the pro- 
duce of the soil to each individual from becoming every 
year less and less, till the whole society and every indi% 
vidual member of it are pressed by want and misery ?* 



*In the Spencean system, as published by the secretary of the Soci- 
ety of Spencean Philanthropists, it unfortunately happens, that after 
the proposed allowances have been made for the expenses of the go- 
vernment, and of the other bodies in the state which are intended to 
be supported, there would be absolutely no remainder ; and the peo- 
ple would not derive a single sixpence from their estate, even at first, 
and on the supposition of the national debt being entirely abolished, 
without the slightest compensation to the national creditors. 

The annual rent of the land, houses, mines and fisheries, is estima- 
ted at 150,000,000, about three times its real amount , yet, even upon 
this extravagant estimate, it is calculated that the division would only 
come to about four pounds a head, not more than is sometimes given 
to individuals from the poor's rates , a miserable provision ! and yet 
toQStantly diminishing^ 



Chap. IL POPULATION. 37 



Of Systems of Equality. (Continued.) 



This is a very simple and intelligible question. And 
surely no man ought to propose or support a system of 
equality, who is not able to give a rational answer to it, 
at least in theory. But even in theory, I have never yet 
heard any thing approaching to a rational answer to it. 

It is a very superficial observation which has some- 
times been made, that it is a contradiction to lay great 
stress upon the efficacy of moral restraint in an improved 
and improving state of society, according to the present 
structure of it, and yet to suppose that it would not act 
with sufficient force in a system of equality, which al- 
most always presupposes a great diffusion of information, 
and a great improvement of the human mind. Those who 
have made this observation do not see that the encourage- 
ment and motive to moral restraint are at once destroyed 
in a system of equality and community of goods. 

Let us suppose that in a system of equality, in spite of 
the best exertions to procure more food, the population is 
pressing hard against the limits of subsifitence, and a'! are 
becoming very poor. It is evidently necessary under these 
circumstances, in order to prevent the society from starv- 
ing, that the rate at which the population increases should 
be retarded. But who are the persons that are to exer- 
cise the restraint thus called for, and either to marrv late 
or not at all .'' It does not seem to be a necessary conse- 
quence of a system of equality that all the human pas- 
sions should be at once extinguished bv it ; but if not, 
those who might wish to marry would feel it hard that 
they should be among the number forced to restrai\> their 
inclinations. As all would be equal, and in smiilai cir- 

F 



38 ESSAY ON Book. HI. 



Of Systems of Equality. (Continued.) 

cumstances, there would be no reason whatever why one 
individual should think himself obliged to practise the 
duty of restraint more than another. The thing, howe- 
ver, must be done, with any hope of avoiding universal 
misery ; and in a state of equality, the necessary restraint 
could only be effected by some general law. But how is 
this law to be supported, and how are the vi61ations of 
it to be punished ? Is the man who marries early to be 
pointed at with the finger of scorn ? is he to be whipped 
at the cart's tail.-* is he to be confined for years in a pri- 
son .'' is he to have his children exposed ? Are not all di- 
rect punishments for an offence of this kmd shocking and 
unnatural to the last degree? And yet, if it be absolute- 
ly necessary, in order to prevent the most overwhelming 
wretchedness, that there should be some restraint on the 
tendency to early marriages, when the resources of the 
country are only sufficient to support a slow rate of in- 
crease, can the most fertile imagination conceive one at 
once so natural, so just, so consonant to the laws of God 
and to the best laws framed by the most enlightened men, 
as , that each individual should be responsible for the 
maintainance of his own children; that is, that he should 
be subjected to the natural inconveniences and difficulties 
arising from the indulgence of his inclinations, and to no 
other whatever } 

That this natural check to early marriages arising from 
a view of the difficulty attending the support of a large 
family operates very widely throughout all classes of so- 
ciety in every civilized state, and may be expected to be 
still more effective, as the lower classes of people con- 



Chap. II. POPULATION. 39 

Of Systems of Equality. (Continued.) 

tinue to improve in knowledge and prudence, cannot ad- 
mit of the slightest doubt. But the operation of this na- 
tural check depends exclusively upon the existence of 
the laws of property and succession; and in a state of 
equality and community of property could only be re- 
placed by some artificial regulation of a very different 
stamp, and a much more unnatural character. Of this 
Mr. Owen is fully sensible, and has in consequence taxed 
his ingenuity to the utmost to invent some mode by which 
the difficulties arising from the progress of population 
could be got rid of, in the state of society to which he 
looks forward. His absolute inability to suggest any 
mode of accomplishing this object that is not unnatural, 
immoral, or cruel in a high degree, together with the 
same want of success in every other person, ancient* or 
modern, who has made a similar attempt, seem to shew 
that the argument against systems of equality founded on 
the principle of population does not admit of a plausible 
answer, even in theory. The fact of the tendency of 
population to increase beyond the means of subsistence 
may be seen in almost every register of a country parish 
in the kingdom. The unavoidable effect of this tendency 
to depress the whole body of the people in want and 
misery, unless the progress of the population be some- 
how or other retarded, is equally obvious; and the im- 
possibility of checking the rate of increase in a state of 



*The reader has already seen in ch. xiii. bk. i. the detestable means 
of checking population proposed by some ancient lawgivers in order 
to support their systems of equality. 



40 ESSAY ON POPULATION. Book Ilf. 



Of Sj'^stems of Equality. (Continued.) 

equality, without resorting to regulations that are unna- 
tural, immoral, or cruel, forms an argument atonce con- 
clusive against every such system.- 



BOOK HI. 

Continuation of Chapter IV. 



TTo follow page 147, Vol. 2, American Edition of 1809 ; and page, 
72, Vol, 2, London Edition of 1807.] 

OJ Emigration. 

In all countries the progress of wealth must depend 
mainly upon the industry, skill and success of individuals, 
and upon the state and demands of other countries. Con- 
sequently, in all countries, great variations may take place 
at different times in the rate at which wealth increases, 
and in the demand for labour But though the progress 
of population is mainly regulated by the effective demand 
for labour, it is obvious that the number of people can- 
not conform itself immediately to the state of this de- 
mand. Some time is required to bring more labour into 
the market when it is wanted ; and some time to check 
the supply when it is flowing in with too great rapidity. 
If these variations amount to no more than that natural 
sort of oscillation noticed in an early part of this work, 
which seems almost always to accompany the progress 
of population and food, they should be submitted to as a 
part of the usual course of things. But circumstances 
may occasionally give them greai^^ force, and then during 
the peviod that the supply of labour is increasing faster 



42 ESSAY ON POPULATION. Book III 

Of Emigration. 

than the demand, the labouring classes are subject to the 
most severe distress. If, for instance, from a combina- 
tion ef external and internal causes, a very great stimulus 
should be given to the population of a country for ten or 
twelve years together, and it should then comparativefy 
cease, it is clear that labour will continue flowing into the 
market with almost undiminished rapidity, while the 
means of employing and paying it have been essentially 
contracted. Jt is precisely under these circumstances 
that emigration is most useful as a temporary relief ; and 
it is in these circumstances that Great Britain finds her- 
self placed at present.* Though no emigration should 
take place, the population will by degrees conform itself 
to the state of the demand for labour ; but the mterval 
must be marked by the most severe distress, the amount 
of which can scarcely be reduced by any human efforts ; 
because, though it may be mitigated at particular periods, 
and as it affects particular classes, it will be proportion- 
ably extended over a larger space of time and a greater 
number of people. The only real relief m such a case 
is emigration ; and the subject at the present moment is 
well worthy the attention of the government, both as a 
matter of humanity and policy. 

*1S16 and 1S17. 



BOOK III.— CHAP. VI. 

FTo follow Page 187, Vol. 2nd, American Edition, 1809; and patfe 112, 
Vol. 2nd, London Edition, 1807.] 

Of Poor-Laws (Continued.) 

The remarks made in the last chapter on the nature 
and effects of the poor laws have been in the most stri- 
king manner confirmed by the experience of the years 
1815,1816 and 1817. During these years, two points 
of the very highest importance have been established, so 
as no longer to admit of a doubt in the mind of any ration- 
al man. 

The first is, that the country does not in point of fact 
fulfil the promises which it makes to the poor in the poor- 
laws, to maintain and find in employment, by means of 
parish assessments, those who are unable to support them- 
selves or their families, either from want of work or any 
other cause. 

And secondly, that with' a very great increase of legal 
parish assessments, aided by the most liberal and praise- 
worthy contributions of voluntary charity, the country 
has been wholy unable to find adequate employment for 
the numerous labourers and artificers who are able as 
well as willing to work. 

It can no longer surely be contended that the poor-laws 
really perform what they promise, when it is known that 
many almost starving families have been found in London 
and other great towns, who are deterred from going on 
the parish by the crowded, unhealthy and horrible state 



/ 
44 ESSAY ON Book TIL 



Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) 



of the workhouses into which they would be received, if 
indeed they could be received at all ; when it is known 
that many parishes have been absolutely unable to raise 
the necessary assessments, the increase of which, accor- 
ding; to the existing laws, have tended only to bring more 
and more persons upon the parish, and to make what was 
collected less and less effectual ; and when it is known 
that there has been an almost universal cry from one end 
of the kingdom to the other for voluntary charity to 
come in aid of the parochial assessments. 

These strong indications of the inefficiency of the poor- 
laws, may merely be considered, not only as incontrover- 
tible proofs of the fact that they do not perform what 
they promise but as affording the strongest presumption 
that they cannot do it. The best of all reasons for the 
breach of a promise, is, the absolute imposibility of exe- 
cuting it- indeed it is the only plea that can ever be con- 
sidered as valid. But though it may be fairly par- 
donable not to execute an imposibility, it is unpardonable 
knowingly to promise one. And if it be still thought ad- 
visable to act upon these statutes as far as is practicable 
it would surely be wise so to alter the terms in which 
they are expressed, and the general interpretation 
given to them, as not to convey to the poor a false notion 
of what really is within the range of practicability. 

It has appeared further as a matter of fact, that very 
large voluntary contributions, combined with greatly in- 
creased parochial assessments, and aided by the most able 
and incessant exertions of individuals, have failed to give 
the necessary employment to those who have been thrown 



Chap. VL POPULATIOM. 4y 



Of Poor Laws. (Continued.) 



out of work by the sudden falling off of demand which 
has occurred during the last two or three years. 

It might perhaps have been foreseen that, as the great 
movements of society, the great causes which render a 
nation progressive, stationary or declining, for longer or 
shorter periods, cannot be supposed to depend much upon 
parochial assessments or the contributions of charity, it 
could not be expected that any efforts of this kind should 
have power to create in a stationary or declining stale of 
thmgs that effective demand for labour which only belongs 
to a progressive state. But to those who did not see this 
truth before, the melancholy experience of the last two 
years must have brought it home with an overpowering' 
conviction. 

It does not however by any means follow that the ex- 
ertions which have been made to relieve the present dis- 
tresses have been ill directed. On the contrary, they 
have not only been prompted by the most praiseworthy 
motives ; they have not only fulfilled the great moral du- 
ty of assisting our fellow-creatures in distress-, but they 
have in point of fact done great good, or at least preven- 
ted great evil. Their partial failure does not necessari- 
ly indicate either a wani of energy or a want of skill in 
those who have taken the lead in these efforts, butmerely 
that a part only of what has been attempted is practicable. 

It is practicable to mitigate the violence and relieve 
the severe pressure of the present distress, so as to carry 
the sufferers through to better times, though even this 
can only be done at the expense of some sacrifices, not 
merely of the rich, but of other clas.ses of the poor. But 

G 



46 ESSAY ON J^ook III. 

Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) 

it is impracticable by any exertions, either individual or 
national, to restore at once that brisk demand for commo- 
dities, and labour which has been lost by events, that, 
however they may have originated, are now beyond the 
power of control. 

The whole subject is surrounded on all sides by the 
most formidable difficulties, and in no state of things is 
it so necessary to recollect the saying of Daniel de 
Foe quoted in the last chapter. The manufacturers all 
over the country, and the Spitalfields weavers in particu- 
lar, are in a state of the deepest distress, occasioned im- 
mediately and directly by the want of demand for the 
produce of their industry, and the consequent necessity 
felt by the masters of turning off many of their workmen 
in order to proportion the supply to the contracted demand. 
It is proposed however, by some well-meaning people, to 
raise by subscription a fund for the express purpose of 
setting to work again those who have been turned off by 
their masters, the effect of which can only be to continue 
glutting a market, already much too fally supplied. This 
is most naturally and justly objected to by the masters, 
as it prevents them from withdrawing the supply, and ta- 
king the only course which can prevent the total destruc- 
tion of their capitals, and the necessity of turning off all 
their men instead of a part. 

On the other hand, some classes of merchants and man- 
ufacturers clamour very loudly for the prohibition of all 
foreign commodities which may enter into competition 
with domestic products, and interfere, as they intimate 
with employment of British industry. But this is most 



Chap. VI POPULATION 47 



Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) 



naturally and most justly depreccitcd by other classes of 
British subjects, who ar'e employed to a very great extent 
in preparing' and manufacturing those commodities which 
are to purchase our imports from foreign countries. And 
it must be allowed to be perfectly true that a court-ball 
at which only British stufts are admitted, may be the 
means of throwing out of employment in one quarter of 
the country just as many persons as it furnishes with em- 
ployment in another. 

Still, it would be desirable if possible to employ those 
that are out of work, if it were merely to avoid the bad 
moral effects of idleness, and ol the evil habits which 
might be generated by d(>pending for a considerable time 
on mere alms. But the difficulties just stated will shew, 
that we ought to proceed in this part of the attempt with 
great caution, and that the kinds of employment which 
ought to be chosen are thase, the result ot which will not 
interfere with existing capitals. Such are public works 
of all descriptions, the making and repairing of roads, 
bridges, railways, canals, &.c. ; and now perhaps, since 
the great loss of agricultural capital, almost every sort of 
labour upon the land, which could be carried on by pub- 
lic subscription. 

Yet even in this way of employing labour, the ben- 
efit to some must bring with it disadvantages to others, 
"That portion of each person's revenue which might go in 
subscriptions of this kind, must of course be lost to the 
various sorts of labour which its expenditure in the usual 
channels would have supported ; and the want of demand 
thus occasioned in these channels mus tcause the pressure of 



48 ESSAY ON Book. Ill 



Of Poor-Lavvs. (Continued.) 



distress to be felt in quarters which might otherwise 
have escaped it. But this is an effect which in such ca- 
ses, it is impossible to avoid ; and, as a temporary mea- 
sure, it is not only charitable but just, to spread the evil 
over a larger surface, in order that its violence on particu- 
lar parts mav be so mitigated as to be made bearable by 
all. 

The great object to be kept in view is to support the 
people through their present distresses, in the hope (and 
I trust a just one) of better times. The difficulty is with 
out doubt considerably agravated by the prodigious stim- 
ulus which has been given to the population of the country 
of late vears, the effects of w^hich cannot suddenly sub- 
side. But it wdll be seen probably, when the next returns 
of the population are made, that the marriages and births 
have diminished, and the deaths increased in a still great- 
er dcijree than in 1800 and 1801; and the continuance of 
this effect to a certain degree for a few years will retard 
theprogress of the population, and combined with the in- 
creasing wants of Europe and America from their increas- 
ingr^c})es, and the adaptation of the supply of commodities 
at home to the new distribution of wealth occasioned by 
the alteration of the circulating medium will again give 
life and energy to all our mercantile and agricultural 
transactions, and restore the labouring classes to full em. 
ployment and good wages. 

On the subject of the distresses of the poor, and par.^ 
ticularly the increase of pauperism of late years, the 
Xnost erroneous opinions have been circulated. During 
the progress of +he war. ^h" increase in the proportion of 
persons requiring parish assistance was attributed chiefly 



Chap. VI. POPULATION. 49 



Of Poor Laws. (Continued.) 



to the high price of the necessaries of Hfe. We have 
seen these aecessaries of life- experience a great and sud- 
den fall, and yet, at the same time, a still larger propor- 
tion of the population requiring parish assistance. 

It is now said that taxation is the sole cause of their 
distresses, and of the extraordinary stagnation in the de- 
mand for labour; yet I feel the firmest conviction, that if 
the whole of the taxes were removed to-morrow, this 
stagnation, mstead of being at an end, would be conside- 
rably aggravated. Such an event would cause another 
great and general rise in the value of the circulating me- 
dium, and bring with it that discouragement to industry 
with which such a convulsion in society must ever b(^ at- 
tended. If, as has been represented, the labouring clas- 
ses now pay more than half of what they receive in tax- 
es, he must know very little indeed of the principles on 
^hich the wages of labour are regulated, who can for a 
moment suppose that, when the commodities on which 
they are expended have fallen one-half by the removal 
of taxes, these wages themselves would still continue of 
the same nominal value. Were they to remain but for a 
short time the same, while all commodities had fallen, 
and the circulating medium had been reduced in propor- 
tion, it would be quickly seen that multitudes of them 
would be at once thrown out of employment. 

The effects of taxation are no doubt in many cases per- 
nicious in a very high degree ; but it may be laid down 
as a rule which has few exceptions, that the relief obtain- 
ed by taking off a tax, is in no respect equal to the inju- 
ry inflicted in laying it on ; and generally it may be said 



30 ESSAY ON Book III 

Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) 

that the specific evil of taxation consists in the check 
which it gives to production, rather than the diminution 
which it occasions in demand. With regard to ail com- 
modities indeed of home production and home demand, 
it is quite certain that the conversion of capital into re- 
venue, which is the eflFect of loans, must necessarily in- 
crease the proportion of demand to the supply ; and the 
conversion of the revenue of individuals into the revenue 
of the government, which is the effect of taxes properly 
imposed, however hard upon the individuals so taxed, can 
have no tendency to diminish the general amount of de- 
mand. It will, of course, diminish the demands of the 
persons taxed by diminishing their powers of purchasing ; 
but to the exact amount that the powers of these persons 
are diminished, will the powers of the government and of 
those employed by it be increased. If an estate of five 
thousand a year has a mortgage upon it of two thousand, 
two families, both in very good circumstances, may be 
living upon the rents of it, and both have considerable 
demands for houses, furniture, carriages, broad-cloth, 
silks, cottons, &c. The man who owns the estate is cer- 
tainly much worse off than if the mortgage-deed was 
burnt, but the manufacturers and labourers who supply 
the silks, broad-cloth, cottons, &c. are so far from being 
likely to be benefitted by such burning, that it would be 
a considerable time .before the new wants and tastes of 
the enriched owner had restored ihe former demand; and 
if he were to take a fancy to spend his additional incoma 
in horses, hounds and menial servants, which is probable, 
not only would the manufacturers and labourers who had 



Chap. VI POPULATION. 51! 

Of Poor Laws. (Continued.) 

before supplied their silks, cloths and cottons, be thrown 
out of employment, but the substituted demand would be 
very much less favorable to the increase of the capital 
and general resources of the country. 

The foregoing illustration represents mor^ nearly than 
may generally be imagined the effects of a national debt 
on the labouring classes of society, and the very great 
mistake of supposing that, because the demands of a con- 
siderable portion of the community would be increased 
by the extinction of the debt, these increased demands 
would not be balanced, and often more than balanced, by 
the loss of the demand from the fundholders and govern- 
ment. 

It is by no means intended by these observations to in- 
timate that a national debt may not be so heavy as to be 
extremely prejudicial to a state. The division and dis- 
tribution of property, which is so beneficial when car- 
ried only to a certain extent, is fatal to production when 
pushed to extremity. The division of an estate of five 
thousand a year will generally tend to increase demand, 
stimulate production and improve the structure of socie- 
ty ; but the division of an estate of eighty pounds a year 
will generally be attended with effects directly the re- 
verse. 

But, besides the probability that the division of proper- 
ty occasioned by a national debt may in many cases be 
pushed too far, the process of the division is effected by 
means which sometimes greatly embarrass production. — 
This embarrassment must necessarily take place to a cer- 
tfiin extent in almost every species of taxation ; but un- 



3^ ESSAY ON Book III 

Of Poor-Laws. (Continued) 

der favorable circumstances it is overcome by the stimu- 
lus given to demand. During the late war, from th» pro- 
digpous increase of produce and population, it may fairly 
be presumed that the power of production was not essen- 
tially impeded, notwithstanding the enormous amount of 
taxation ; but in the state of things which has occurred 
since the peace, and under a most extraordinary fall of the 
exchangeable value of the raw produce of the land, and 
a great consequent diminution of the circulating medium, 
the very sudden increase of the weight and pressure of 
taxation must greatly aggravate the other causes which 
discourage production. This effect has been felt to a 
considerable extent on the land , but the distress in this 
quarter is already much mitigated ; and among the mer- 
cantile and manufacturing classes, where the greatest 
numbers are without employment, the evil obviously ari- 
ses, not so much from the want of capital and the means 
of production, as the want of a market for the commo- 
dity when produced — a want for which the removal of 
taxes, however proper, and indeed absolutely necessary 
as a permanent measure, is certainly not the immediate 
and specific remedy. 

The principal causes of the increase of pauperism, in- 
dependently of the present crisis, are, first, the general in- 
crease of the manufacturing systems and the unavoidable 
variations of manufacturing labour : and secondly, and 
more particularly, the practice which has been adopted 
in some counties, and is now spreading pretty generally 
all over the kingdomj oi paying a considerable ^ortioR 



Chap. VL POPULATION. 53 

Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) 

of what ought to be the wages of labour out of the pa- 
rish rates. During the war, n hen the demand for labour 
was great and increasing, it is quite certain that nothing 
but a practice of this kind could for any time have pre- 
vented the wages of labour from rising fully in propor- 
tion to the necessaries of life, in w^hatever degree these 
necessaries might have been raised by taxation. It was 
seen, consequently, that in those parts of Great Britain 
where this practice prevailed the least, the wages of la- 
bour rose the most. This was the case in Scotland, and 
some parts of the North of England, where the improve- 
ment in the condition of the labouring classes, and their 
increased command over the necessaries and convenien- 
ces of life, were particularly remarkable. And if, in 
some other parts of the country where the practice did 
not greatly prevail, and especially in the towns, wages 
did not rise in the same degree, it was owing to the influx 
and competition of the cheaply raised population of the 
surrounding counties. 

It is a just remark of Adam Smith, that the attempts 
of the legislature to raise the pay of curates had always 
been ineffectual, on account of the cheap and abundant 
supply of them, occasioned by the bounties given to 
young persons educated for the church at the universities. 
And it is equally true that no human efforts can keep up the 
price of day-labour so as to enable a man to support on 
his earnings a family of a moderate size, so long as those 
who have more than two children are considered us hav- 
ing a valid claim to parish assistance. 

If th»is system were to become universal, and I own it 

H 



54 ESSAY ON Book. Ill 



Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) 



appears to me that the poor-laivs naturally lead to it, 
there is no reason whatever why parish assistance should 
not hy degrees begin earlier and earlier; and I do not 
hesitate to nssert, that, if the government and constitu- 
tion of the ^try were in all other respects as perfect 
as the wilde?;t visionary thinks he could make them ; if 
parliaments were annual, suffrage universal, wars, taxes, 
and pensions unknown, and the civil list fifteen hundred 
a year, the great body of the community might still be a 
oollection of paupers. 

I have been accused of proposing a law to prohibit the 
poor from marrying. This is not true. So far from pro- 
posing such a law, 1 have distinctly said that, if any per- 
son chooses to marry without having a prospect of being 
able to maintain a family, he ought to have the most per- 
fect liberty so to do ; and whenever any prohibitory pro- 
positions have been suggested to me as advisable by per- 
sons who have drawn wrong inferences from what I have 
said, I have steadily and uniformly reprobated them, I 
am indeed most decidedly of opinion, that any positive 
law to limit the age of marriage would be both unjust 
and immoral; and my greatest objection to a system of 
equality and the system of the poor-laws (two systems 
which, however different in their outset, are of a nature 
calculated to produce the same results) is, that the society 
in which they are effectively carried into execution, will 
uUimatel- be reduced to the miserable alternative of 
clioosing between universal want and the enactment of 
direct 'aws aarainst marriage. 

What 1 have really propos'ed is a very different mea- 



Chap. VL POPULATION. 55 



Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) 



sure. It is the gradual and very gradual abolition of the 
poor-laws.* And the reason why I have ventured to sug- 
gest a proposition of this kind for consideration is my 
firm conviction, that they have lowered very decidedly 
the wages of the labouring classes, and made their gene- 
ral condition essentially worse than it would have been if 
these laws had never existed. Their operation is every 
where depressing; but it falls peculiarly hard upon the 
labouring classes in great towns. In country parishes the 
poor do really receive some compensation for their low 
wages ; their children, beyond a certain number, are real- 
ly supported by the parish ; and though it must be a most 
grating reflection to a labouring man, that it is scarcely 
possible for him to marry without becoming the father of 
paupers; yet if he can reconcile himself to this pros'- 
pect, the compensation, such as it is, is no doubt made to 
him. But in London and all the great towns of the king- 
dom, the evil is suffered without the compensation. The 
population raised by bounties in the country naturally and 
n,ecessarily flows into the towns, and as naturally and ne- 
cesj.arily tends to lower wages in them; while in point 
of fact, those who marry in towns and have large fami- 
lies, receive no assistance from their parishes, unless they 
are actually starving ; and altogether the assistance which 
the manufacturing classes obtain for the support of their 
families, in aid of their lowered wages, is perfectly in- 
considerable. 



*So gradual as not to affect any individuals at present alive, or who 
will be born within the next tw6 years. 



5Q ESSAY ON Book III] 

Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) 

To remedy the effects of this competition from the 
country, the artificers and manufacturers in towns have 
been apt to combine, with a view to keep up the price of 
labour, and to prevent persons from working below a cer- 
tain rate. But such combinations are not only illegal, but 
irrational and ineffectual ; and if the supply of workmen 
in any particular branch of trade be such as would natu- 
rally lower wages, the keeping them up forcibly must 
have the effect of throwing so many out of employment, 
as to make the expense of their support fully equal to the 
gain acquired by the higher wages, and thus render these 
higher wages in reference to the whole body perfectly 
futile. 

It may be distinctly stated to be an absolute impossi- 
hility, that all the different classes of society should be 
both well paid and fully employed, if the supply of la- 
bour on the whole exceed the demand ; and as the poor- 
laws tend in the most marked manner ta make the sup- 
ply of labour exceed the demand for it, their effect must 
be, either to lower universally all wages, or, if some are 
kept up artificially, to throw great numbers of workmen 
out of employment, and thus constantly to increase the 
poverty and distress of the labouring classes of society. 

If these things be so (and I am firmly convinced that 
they are) it cannot but be a subject of the deepest regret 
to those who are anxious for the happiness of the great 
mass of the community, that the writers which are now 
most extensively read among the common people should 
have selected for the subject of reprobation, exactly that 
line of conduct which can alone generally improve their 



Chap. VI. POPULATION. 57 

Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) 

coiidition, and for the subject of approbation that system 
which must inevitably depress them in poverty and 
wretchedness. 

They are taught that there is no occasion whatever for 
them to put any sort of restraint upon their inchnations, 
or exercise any degree of prudence in the affair of mar- 
riage ; because the parish is bound to provide for all that 
are born. They are taught that there is as little occa- 
sion to cultivate habits of economy, and make use of 
the means afforded them by saving banks, to lay by their 
earnings while they are single, in order to furnish a cot- 
tage when they marry, and enable them to set out in life 
with decency and comfort ; because I suppose, the parish 
is bound to cover their nakedness, and to find them a bed 
and a chair in a work-house. 

They are taught that any endeavour on the part of the 
higher classes of society to inculcate the duties of pru- 
dence and economy can only arise from a desire to save 
the money which they pay in poor-rates ; although it is 
absolutely certain that the only mode consistent with the 
laws of morality and religion, of giving to the poor the 
largest share of the property of the rich, without sinking 
the whole community in misery, is the exercise on the 
part of the poor of prudence in marriage, and of econo- 
my both before and after it. 

They are taught that the command of the Creator to 
increase and multiply is meant to contradict those laws 
which he has himself appointed for the increase and mul- 
tiplication of the human race ; and that it is equally the 
duty of a person to marry early, when, from the impossibili 



5^ ESSAY ON Booh m. 



Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) 



ty of adding to the food of the country in which he 
lives, the greater part of his offspring must die prema- 
turely, and consequently no multiplication follow from it, 
as when the children of such marriages can all be well 
maintained, and there is room and food for a great and 
rapid increase of population. 

They are taught that, in relation to the condition of 
the labourirtg classes, there is no other difference between 
such a country as England, which has been long well peo- 
pled, and where the land, which is not yet taken into cul- 
tivation, is comparatively barren, and such a country as 
America, where millions and millions of acres of fine land 
are yet to be had for a trifle, except what arises from tax- 
ation. 

And they are taught, O monstrous absurdity ! that the 
only reason why the American labourer earns a dollar a 
day, and the English labourer earns two shillings, is that 
the English labourer pays a great part of these two shil- 
lings in taxes. 

Some of those doctrines are so grossly absurd that I 
have no doubt they are rejected at once by the common 
sense of many of the labouring classes. It cannot but 
strike them that, if their main dependence for the sup- 
port of their children, is to be on the parish, they can 
only expect parish fare, parish clothing, parish furniture, 
a parish house and a parish government, and they must 
know^ that persons living in this way cannot possibly be 
in a happy and prosperous state. 

It can scarcely escape the notice of the common me'= 
^hanic, that the scarcer workmen are upon any occasicHi 



Chap, ri POPULATION 59 

Of Poor-Lavvs. (Continued) 

the greater share do they retain of the value of what they 
produce for their masters ; and it is a most natural infer- 
ence, that prudfince in marriage, which is the only moral 
means of preventing an excess of workmen ahove the de- 
mand, can be the only mode of giving to the poor per- 
manently a large share of all that is produced in the 
country. 

A common man, who has read his Bible, must be con- 
vinced that a command given to a rational being by a mer- 
ciful God cannot be intended so to be interpreted as to 
produce only disease and death instead of multiplication ; 
and a plain sound understanding would make him to see 
that, if in a country in which little or no increase of food 
is to be obtained, every man were to marry at eighteen 
or twenty, when he generally feels most inclined to it, the 
consequence must be increased poverty, increased disease 
and increased mortality, and not increased numbers, as 
long at least as it continues to be true (which he will hard- 
ly be disposed to doubt) that additional numbers cannot 
live without additional food 

A moderately shrewd judgment would prompt any la- 
bourer acquainted with the nature of land to suspect that 
there must be some great diiference, quite independent 
of taxation, between a country such as America, 
which might easily be made to support fifty times as ma- 
ny inhabitants as it contains at present, and a country 
such as England, which could not without extraordinary 
exertions be made to support two or three times as many. 
Hp would at least see that there would be a prodigious 
difference in the power of maintaining an additional num- 



60 ESSAY ON Book III 

Of Poor-Laws, (Continued.) 

ber of cattle, between a small farm already well stocked 
and a very large one which had not the fiftieth part of 
what it mighi be made to maintain ; and as he would know 
that both rich and poor must live upon the produce of the 
earth as well as all other animals, he would be dispose^ 
to conclude that what was so obviously true in one case, 
could not be false in the other. These considerations might 
make him think it natural and probable that in those coun- 
tries where there was a great want of people, the wages 
of labour would be such as to encourage early marriages 
and large families, ior the best of all possible reasons, be- 
cause all that are born may be very easily and comforta- 
bly supported; but that in those countries which were 
already nearly full, the wages of labour cannot be such 
as to give the same encouragement to early marriages, for 
a reason surely not much worse, because the persons so 
brought into the world cannot be properly supported. 

There are few of our mechanics and labourers who 
have not heard of the high prices of bread, meat and la- 
bour in this country compared w^ith the nations of the 
continent, and they have generally heard at the same time 
that these high prices were chiefly occasioned by taxa- 
tion, which, though it had raised among other things the 
money wages of labour, had done harm rather than good 
to the labourer, because it had before raised the price of 
the bread and beer and other articles in which he spent 
his earnings. With this amount of mformation, the mean- 
est understanding would revolt at the idea that the very 
same cause which had kept the money price of labour in 
all the nations of Europe much lower than in England, 



Chap. VI POPULATION. 61 



Of Poor-Laws. (Continued.) 



namely, the absence of taxation, had been the means of 
raising it to more than double in America. He would 
feel quite convinced that whatever might be the cause of 
the high money wages of labour in America, which he 
might not perhaps readily understand, it must be some- 
thing very different indeed from the mere absence of tax- 
ation, which could only have an effect exactly o{ p') ite. 

With regard to the improved condition of the lower 
classes of people in France since the revolution, which 
has also been much insisted upon; if the circumstances 
accompanying it were told at the same time, it would af- 
ford the strongest presumption against the doctrines which 
have been lately promulgated. The improved condition 
of the labouring classes in France since the revolution 
has been accompanied by a greatly diminished proportion 
of births, which has had its natural and necessary effect in 
giving to these classes a greater share of the produce of 
the country, and has kept up the advantage arising from 
the sale of the church lands and other national domains, 
which would otherwise have been lost in a sWrt time. 
The effect of the revolution in France has been, to make 
every person depend more upon himself and less upon 
others. The labouring classes are therefore become 
more industrious, more saving and more prudent in mar- 
riage than formerly; and it is quite certain that without 
these effe -ts the revolution would have done nothing for 
them. An improved government has, no doubt, a natural 
tendency to produce these effects, and thus to improve 
the condition of the poor. But if an extensive system 
of parochial relief, and such doctrines as have lately 



I 



02 ESSAY ON POPULATldN. Book tit 

Of PoorLaws. (Continued.) 

been inculcated, counteract them, and prevent the labour- 
ing classes from depending upon their own prudence and 
industry, then any change for the better in other respects 
becomes comparatively a matter of very little importance 
and under the best form of government imaginable, there 
may be thousands on thousands out of employment and 
half starved. 

If it be taught that all who are born have a right to 
support on the land, whatever be their number, and that 
there is no occasio to exercise any prudence in the af- 
fair of marriage so as to check this number, the temp- 
tations according to all the known principles of human 
nature, will inevitably be yielded to, and more and more 
will gradually become dependent on parish assistance. 
There cannot therefore be a greater inconsistency and 
contradiction than that those who maintain these doctrines 
respecting the poor, should still complain of the number of 
paupers. Such doctrines and a crowd of paupers are un 
avoidably united ; and it is utterly beyond the power of 
any revolution or change ofgovernnjient to separate theoL 



BOOK III.— CHAP. VIII 



[To follow page 219, Vol. 2, American Edition of 1809;] 
Of the Jigricultural System. 

As it is the nature of agriculture to produce subsis- 
tence for a greater number of families than can be em- 
ployed in the business of cultivation, it might perhaps be 
supposed that a nation which strictly pursued an agricul- 
tural system would always have more food than was ne- 
cessary for its inhabitants, and that its population could 
never be checked irom the want of the means of subsis* 
tence. 

It is indeed obviously true that the increase of such a 
country is not immediately checked, either oy the want 
of power to produce, or even by the deficiency of the ac- 
tual produce of the soil compared with the population. 
Yet if we examine the condition of its labouring classes, 
we shall find that the real wages of their labour are such 
as essentially to check and regulate their increase, by 
checking and regulating their command over the means 
of subsistence. 

A country under certain circumstances of soil and situ- 
ation, and with a deficient capital, may find it advanta- 
geous to purchase foreign commodities with its raw pro- 
duce, rather than manufacture them at hoiTie ; and in this 



64 ESSAY ON Book. III. 

Of the Agricultural System. 

case it will necessarily grow more raw produce than it 
consumes. But this state of things is very little connect- 
ed either with the permanent condition of the lower clas- 
ses of the society or the rate of their increase ; and in a 
country where the agricultural system entirely predomi- 
nates, and the great mass of its industry is directed to- 
wards the land, the condition of the people is subject to 
almost every degree of variation. 

Under the agricultural system perhaps are to be found 
the two extremes in the condition of the poor ; instances 
where they are in the best state, and instances where they 
are in the worst state of any of which we have accounts- 

In a country where there is an abundance of good land, 
where there are no difficulties in the way of its purchase 
and distribution, and where there is an easy foreign vent 
for raw produce, both the profits of stock, and the wa- 
ges of labour will be high. These high profits and high 
wages, if habits of economy pretty generally prevail, will 
furnish the means of a rapid accumulation of capital and 
a great and continued demand for labour, while the rapid 
increase of population which will ensue will maintain un- 
diminished the demand for produce, and check the fall of 
profits. If the extent of territory be considerable, and 
the population comparatively inconsiderable, the land 
may remain understocked both with capital and people 
for some length of time, notwithstanding a rapid increase 
of both; and it is under these circumstances of the agri- 
cultural system that labour is able to command the great- 
est portion of the necessaries of life, and that the condi- 
tion of the labouring classes of society is the best 



Chap. VIIL POPULATION. 63 



Of the Agricultural System. 



The only drawback to the wealth of the labouring clas- 
ses under these circumstances is the relatively low value 
of the raw produce. 

If a considerable part of the manufactured commodi- 
ties used in such a country be purchased by the export of 
its raw produce, it follows as a necessary consequence 
that the relative value of its raw produce will be lower, 
and of its manufactuied produce higher, than in the coun- 
tries with which such trade is carried on But where a giv- 
en portion of raw produce will not comnaand so much of 
manufactured and foreign commodities as in other coun- 
ti^ies, the condition of the labourer cannot be exactly 
measured by the quantity of raw produce which falls to 
his share. If, for instance, in one country, the yearly 
earnings of a labourer amount in money value to fifteen 
quarters of wheat, and in another to nine, it would be in- 
correct to infer that their relative condition, and the com- 
forts which they enjoy, were in the same proportion, be- 
cause the whole of a labourer's earnings are not spent in 
food ; and if that part which is not so spent will, in the 
country where the value of fifteen quarters is earned, not 
go near so far in the purchase of clothes and other con- 
veniences as in the country where the value of nine quar- 
ters is earned, it is clear that altogether the situation of 
the labourer in the latter country may approach nearer to 
that of the labourer in the former than might at first be 
supposed. 

At the same time it should be recollected that quantity 
always tends powerfully to counterbalance any deficiency 
of value ; and the labourer who earns the greatest num- 



m ESSAY ON Book HI 

Of the Agricultural SystenL 

ber of quarters may still command the greatest quantity 
of necessaries and conveniences combined, though not to 
the extent implied by the proportions of the raw pro* 
duce. 

America affords a practical instance of the agricultural 
system in a state the most favorable to the condition of 
the laboring classes^ The nature of the country has been 
such as to make it answer to employ a very large proper^ 
tion of its capital in agriculture ; and the consequence 
has been a very rapid increase of stock. This rapid in- 
crease of stock has kept up a steady and continued de- 
mand for labour. The labourmg classes have in conse~ 
quence been peculiarly well paid. They have been able 
to command an unusual quantity of the necessaries of life; 
and the progress of population has been unusually rapid. 

Yet even here, some little drawback has been felt from 
the relative cheapness of corn. As America till the late 
war imported the greatest part of its manufactures from 
England, and as England imported flour and wheat from 
America, the value of food in America compared with 
manufactures must have been decidedly less than in Eng- 
land. Nor would this effect take place merely with re- 
lation to the foreign commodities imported into America, 
but also to those of its home manufactures, in which it 
lias no particular advantage. In Agriculture, the abun- 
dance of good land would counterbalance the high wages 
of labour and high profits of stock, and keep the price 
of corn moderate, notwithstanding the great expense of 
these two elements of price. But in the production of 
manufactured commodities they must neeessajcily tell. 



Chap, nil POPULATION. 6f 

Of the Agricultural System. 

without any particular advantage to counterbalance them 
and must in general occasion in home goods, as well as 
foreign, a high price compared with food 

Under these circumstances, the condition of the labour- 
ing classes of society cannot in point of conveniences 
and comforts be so much better than that of the labour- 
ers of other countries as the relative quantity of food 
which they earn might seem to indicate , and this conclu- 
sion is sufficiently confirmed by experience. In some 
very intelligent Travels through a great part of England, 
written in 1810 and 1811 by Mr. Simond, a French gen- 
tleman, who had resided above twenty years in America, 
the author seems to have been evidently much struck 
with the air of convenience and comfort in the houses of 
our peasantry, and the neatness and cleanliness of their 
dress. In some parts of his tour he saw so many neat 
cottages, so much good clothing, and so little appearance 
of poverty and distress, that he could not help wonder- 
ing where the poor of England and their dwellings were 
concealed. These observation coming from an able, ac- 
curate and apparently most impartial observer, just lan- 
ded from America and visiting England for the first time, 
are curious and instructive ; and the facts which they no- 
tice, though they may arise in part from the different ha- 
bits and modes of life prevailing in the t* o countries, 
must be occasioned in a considerable degree by the caus- 
es above mentioned. 

A very striking instance of the disadvantageous effect 
of a low relative price of food on the condition of the 
poor may be observed In Ireland. In Ireland the fundp 



68 ESSAY ON Book. HI. 

Of the Agricultural System. 

for the maintainance of lahour have increased so rapidly 
during the last century, and so large a portion of that 
sort of food which forms the principal support of the 
lower classes of society has heen awarded to them, that 
the increase of population has heen more rapid than in al- 
most any known country, except America. The Irish 
labourer paid in potatoes has earned perhaps the means of 
subsistence for double the number of persons that could 
be supported by the earnings of an English labourer paid 
in wheat; and the increase of population in the two 
countries during the last century has been nearly in pro- 
portion to the relative quantity of the customary food a- 
warded to the labourers in each. But th;„ir general con- 
dition with respect to conveniences and comforts are very 
far indeed from being in a similar proportion. The great 
quantity of food which land will bear when planted with 
potatoes, and the consequent cheapness of the labour sup- 
ported by them, tends rather to raise than to lovver the 
rents of land, and as far as rent goes, to keep up the price 
of the materials of manufactures, and all other sorts of 
raw produce, except potatoes. In the raw materials of 
of home manufactures, therefore, a great relative disad- 
vantage will be suffered, and a still greater both in the 
raw and manufactured produce of foreign countries. The 
exchangeable value of the food which the Irish labour- 
er earns above what he and his family consume will go 
but a very little way in the purchase of clothing, lodging 
and other conveniences; and the jconsequence is that his 
condition in these respects is extremely miserable, at the 



Chap, nil. POPULATION. 69 



Of the Agricultural System. 



same time that his means of subsistence, such as they are, 
may be comparatively abun(iant. 

In Ireland the money price of labour is not much more 
than the half of what it is in England. The quantity of 
food earned by no means makes up for its deficient value. 
A certain portion, therefore, of the Irish labourer's wa- 
ges (a fourth or a fifth for instance) will go but a very lit- 
tle w^ay in the purchase of manufactures and foreign pro- • 
duce. In America, on the other hand, even the money 
wages of labour are nearly double those of England. — 
Though the American labourer, therefore, cannot pur- 
chase manufactures and foreign produce with the food 
that he earns so cheap as the English labourer, yet the 
greater quantity of this food makes up for its deficiency 
of relative value. His condition compared with the la- 
bouring classes of England, though it may not be so much 
superior as their relative means of subsistence might in- 
dicate, must still on the w^hole have decidedly the ad- 
vantage; and altogether, perhaps, America may be pro- 
duced as an instance of the agricultural system in which 
the condition of the the labouring classes is the best of 
any that we know. 

The instances where, under the agricultural system, 
the condition of the lower classes of society is very 
wretched, are more frequent. When the accumulation 
of capital stops, whatever may be the cause, the popula- 
tion, before it comes to a stand, will always be pressed 
on as near to the limits of the actual means of subsist- 
ence, as the habits of the lower classes of the society 
will allow ; that is, the real wages of labour will sink till 



K 



% ESSAY ON Book III' 

Of the Agricultural System. 

they are only just sufficient to maintain a stationary popu- 
lation. Should this happen, as it frequently does, while 
land is still in abundance and capital scarce, the profits of 
stock will naturally be high ; but corn will be very cheap, 
owing to the goodness and plenty of the land, and the 
stationary demand for it, notwithstanding the high pro- 
fits jf stock ; while these high profits, together with the 
usual want of skill and proper division of labour, which at- 
tend a scanty capital, will render all domestic manufactured 
commodities comparatively very dear. This state of things 
XvM naturally be unfavorable to the generation of those hab- 
its of prudential restraint which most frequently arise from 
the custom of enjoying conveniences and comforts, and it 
is to be expected that the population will not stop till the 
wages of labour, estimated even in food, are very low. 
But in a country where the wages of labour estimated in 
food are low, and that food is relatively of a very low 
value, both with regard to domestic and foreign manufac- 
tures, the condition of the labouring classes of society 
must be the worst possible. 

Poland, and some parts of Russia, Siberia and Euro- 
pean Turkey, afford instances of this kind. In Poland 
the population seems to be almost stationary or very slow- 
ly progressive ; and as both the population and produce 
are scanty, compared with the extent of territory, we 
ma\ infer with certainty that its capital is scanty, and yet 
slowly progressive. It follows, therefore, that the de- 
mand for labour increases very slowly, and that the real 
w^a (es ot ;ab' ui , or the command of the labouring classes 
over the necessaries and conveniences of life, are such 



Chap. VI IL POPULATIOV. 71 



Of the Agricultural System. 



as to keep the population down to the level of the slowly 
increasing quantity that is awarded to them. And as from 
the state of the country the peasantry cannot have been 
much accustomed to conveniences and comfoits, the 
checks to its population are more likely to be of the pos- 
itive than of the preventive kind. 

Yet here corn is in abundance, and great quantities of 
it are yearly exported. But it appears clearly that it is 
not either the power of the country to produce food, or 
even what it actually produces, that limits and regulates 
the progress of population, but the quantity which in the 
actual state of things is awarded to the labourer, and th^ 
rate at which the funds so appropriated increase. 

In the present case the demand lor labour is very small j 
and though the population is inconsiderable, it is greater 
than the scanty capital of the country can fully employ ; 
the condition of the labourer, therefore, is depressed by 
his being able to command only such a quantity of food as 
will maintain a stationary or very slowly increasing popu- 
lation. It is further depressed by the low relative value 
of the food that he earns, which gives to any surplus he 
may possess a very small power in the purchase of manu- 
factured commodities or foreign produce. 

Under these circumstances, we cannot be surprised 
that all accounts of Poland should represent the condi- 
tion of the lower classes of society as extremely misera- 
ble; and the other parts of Europe, which resemble Po- 
land in the state of their land and capital, resemble it ia 
the condition of their people. 

In justice, however, to the agricultural system, it 



72 ESSAY ON Book HI. 

Of the Agricultural System, 

should be observed, that the premature check to the capi- 
tal and the demand for labour, which occurs in some of 
the countries of Europe, while land continues in consid- 
erable plenty, is not occasioned by the particular direc- 
tion of their industry, but by the vices of the government 
and the structure of the society, which prevent its full 
and fair developement in that direction. 

Poland is continually brought forward as an example 
of the miserable effects of the agricultural system. But 
nothing surely can be less far. The misery of Poland 
does not arise from its directing its industry chiefly to 
agriculture, but from the little encouragement given to 
industry of any kind, owing to the state of property and 
the servile condition of the people. While the land is 
cultivated by boors, the produce of whose exertions be- 
longs entirely to their masters, and the whotie society 
consists mainly of these degraded beings and the lords 
and owners of great tracts of territory, there will evi- 
dently be no class of persons possessed of the means ei- 
ther of furnishing an adequate demand at home for the 
surplus produce of the soil, or of accumulating fresh 
capital and increasing the demand for labour. In this 
miserable state of things, the best remedy would unques- 
tionably be the introduction of manufactures and com- 
merce-, because the introduction of manufactures and 
commerce could alone liberate the mass of the people 
from slavery, and give the necessary stimulus to industry 
and accumulation. But were the people already free and 
industrious, and landed property easily divisible and 
alienable, it might still answer to such a country as Pq- 



Chap. Viri. POPULATION. T3 



Of the Agricultural System. 



land to purchase its finer manufactures from foreign coun- 
tries by means of its raw products, and thus to continue 
essentially agricultural for many years. Under these new 
circumstances, however, it would present a totally differ- 
ent picture from that which it exhibits at present; and 
the condition of the people would more resemble that of 
the inhabitants of the United States of America than of 
the inhabiiants of the unimproved countries of Europe. 
Indeed, America is, perhaps, the only modern instance of 
the fair operation of the agricultural system. In every 
countrv of Europe, and in most of its colonies in other 
parts of the world, formidable obstacles still exist to the 
employment of capital upon the land, arising from the 
remains of the feudal system. But these obstacles which 
have essentially impeded cultivation have been very far 
indeed from proportionably encouraging othei branches 
of industry. Commerce and manufactures are necessary 
to agriculture ; but agriculture is still more necessary to 
commerce and manufactures. It must ever be true that 
the surplus produce of the cultivators, taken in its most 
enlarged sense, measures and limits the growth of that 
•pafft of the society which is not employed upon the land. 
Throughout the whole world the number of manufactur- 
ers, of merchants, of proprietors and of personstngaged 
in the various civil and military professions, must be ex- 
actly proportioned to this surplus produce, and cannot in 
tbe nature of things increase beyond it. If the earth had 
been so niggardly of her produce as to oblige all her in- 
habitants to labour for it, no manufacturers or idle per- 
sons could ever have existed. But her first intercourse 



^4 ESSAY ON Book. HI. 

Of the Agricultural System. 

with man was a voluntary present, not very large indeed, 
but sufficient as a fund for his subsistence till he could 
procure a greater. And the power to procure a greater 
was given to him in that quality of the earth by which it 
may be made to yield a much larger quantity of food, 
and of the materials of clothing and lodging, 'han is ne- 
cessary to feed, clothe and lodge the persons employed 
in the cultivation of the soil. This quality is the founda- 
tion of that surplus produce which peculiarly distinguish- 
es the industry employed upon the land. In propoition 
as the labour and ingenuity of man exercised upon the 
land have increased this surplus produce, leisure has been 
given to a greater number of persons to employ themselves 
in all the inventions which embellish civilized life; while 
the desire to profit by these inventions has continued to 
stimulate the cultivators to increase their surplus pro- 
duce. This desire, indeed jpay be considered as almost 
absolutely necessary to give it its proper value, and to en- 
courage its further extension ; but still the order of pre- 
cedence is, strictly speaking, the surplus produce ; be- 
cause the funds for the subsistence of the manufacturer 
must be advanced to him before he can complete his- 
work ; and no'step can be taken in any other sort of in- 
dustry unless the cultivators obtain from the soil more 
than they themselves consume. 

If in asserting the peculiar productiveness of the la- 
bor employed upon the land, we look only to the clear 
monied rent yielded to a certain number of proprietors, 
we undoubtedly consider the -.ubject in a very contracted 
point of view. In the advanced stages of society, this rent 



Chap. Vm. POPUI.ATION. 75 



Of the Agricultural System. 



forms indeed the most prominent portion of the surplus 
produce liere meant; but it may exist equally in the shape 
of high wages and profits during the earlier periods of 
cultivation when there is little or no rent. The labour- 
er who earns a value equal to fifteen quarters of corn in 
the year may have only a family of three or four children, 
-and not consume in kind above five or six quarters, and 
the owner of the farming stock, which yields high pro- 
fits, may consume but a very moderate proportion of them 
in food and raw materials. All the rest, whether in the 
shape of wages and profits, or of rents, may be consid- 
ered as a surplus produce from the soil, which affords the 
means of subsistence a»d the materials of clothing and 
lodging to a certain number of people according to its 
extent, some of whom may live without manual exertions, 
and others employ themselves in modifying the raw ma- 
terials obtained from the earth into the forms best suited 
to the gratification of man. 

It will depend, of course, entirely upon its answering 
to a country to exchange a part of the surplus produce lor 
foreign commodities, instead of consuming it at home, 
whether it is to be considered as mainly agricultural or 
otherwise. And such an exchange of raw produce for 
manufactures, or peculiar foreign products, may for a pe- 
riod of some extent suit a state, which might resemble 
Poland in scarcely any other feature but that of export- 
ing corn. 

It appears then, that countries in which the industry of 
the inhabitants is principally directed towards the land, 
and in which corn continues to be exported, n^y enjor 



76 ESSAY ON POPULATION. Book III 

Of the Agricultural System. 

great abundance or experience great want, according to 
the particular circumstances in which they are placed. 
They will in general not be much exposed to the tempo- 
rary evils of scarcity arising from the variations of the 
seasons ; but the quantity of food permanently av^arded 
to the labourer may be such as not to allow of an increase 
of population; and their state, in respect to their being 
progressive, stationary or declining, will depend upon 
other causes than that of directing their attention princi- 
pally to agriculture. 



CHAPTER IX. 



Of the Commercial System. 

A Country which excels in commerce and manufac- 
tures, may purchase corn froto a great variety of others j 
and it may be supposed, perhaps, that proceeding upon 
this system, it may continue to purchase an increasing 
quantity, and to maintain a rapidly increasing population, 
till the lands of all the nations with which it trades 
are fully cultivated. As this is an event necessarily at a 
great distance, it may appear that the population of such 
a country will not be checked from the difficulty of pro- 
curing subsistence till after the lapse of a great number of 
ages. 

There are, however, causes constantly in operation, 
which will occasion the pressure of this difficulty, long 
before the event here contemplated has taken place, and 
while the means of raising food in the surrounding coun- 
tries may still be comparatively abundant. 

In the first place, advantages which depend exclu- 
sively upon capital and skill, and the present possession 
of particular channels of commerce, cannot in their na- 
ture be permanent. We know how difficult it is to con- 
fine improvements in machinery to a single spot ; we know 
that it is the constant object, both of individuals and couja- 



•*r8 ESSAY ON Book HI 

Of the Commercial System, 



tries, to increase their capital ; and we know, from the 
past history of commercial states, that the channels of 
trade are not unfrequently taking a different direction. It is 
unreasonable therefore to expect that any one country, 
merely by the force of skill and capital, should remain in 
possession of markets uninterrupted by foreign competi- 
tion. But, when a powerful foreign competition takes 
place, the exportable commodities of the country in ques- 
tion must soon fall to prices which will essentially reduce 
profits ; and the fall of profits will diminish both the 
power and the will to save. Under these circumstances 
the accumulation of capital will be slow, and the demand 
for labour proportionably slow, till it comes nearly to a 
stand; while, perhaps, the^ new competitors, either by 
raising their own raw materials or by some other ad- 
vantages, may still be increasing their capitals and popula- 
tion with some degree of rapidity. 

But, secondly, even if it were possible for a consider- 
able time to exclude any formidable foreign competition, 
it is found that domestic competition produces almost un- 
avoidably the same eifects. If a machine be invented in 
a particular country, by the aid of which one man can do 
the work of ten, the possessors of it will of course at 
first make very unusual profits; but as soon as the inven- 
tion is generally known, so much capital and industry 
will be brought into this new and profitable employment 
as to make its products greatly exceed both the for- 
eign and domestic demand «t the old prices. These pri- 
ces, therefore, will continue to fall, till the stock and la- 
bour employed in this direction cease to yield unusuaV 



Ckup.iX. POPULATION. 7,9 



Of the Commercial System. 



profits. In this case it is evident that , though in an ear- 
ly period of such a manufacture, the product of the in- 
dustry of one man for a day might have been exchanged 
for such a portion of food as would support forty or fifiy 
persons; yet at a subsequent period, the product ol the 
same industry might not purchase the support of te;i. 

In the cotton trade of tins country, which has extend- 
ed itself so w-onderfuUy during the last twenty-five years 
very little effect has hitherto been produced by loreign 
competition.* The very great fall which has taken 
place in the prices of cotton goods has been almost 
exclusively owmg to domestic competition and t.iis 
competition has so glutted both the home and foreign 
markets, that the present capitals employed in the 
trade, notwithstanding the very peculiar advantages 
which they possess from the saving of labour, have 
ceased to possess any advantage whatever in the gen- 
eral rate of their profits. Although, by means of the 
admirable machmery used in the spinning cotton, one boy 
or girl can now do as much as many grown persons could 
do formerly ; yet neither the wages of the labourer, nqr 
the profits of his master, are higher than in those em- 
ployments where no machinery is used, and no saving of 
labour accomplished. 

The country has, however, in the mean time, been very 
greatly benefitted. Not only have all its inhabitants been 
enabled to obtain a superior fabric for clothing, at a less 
expence of labour and property, which must be consider- 



-^ 



'IS 16 



80 ESSAY ON Book. III. 

r ■ - I • 

Of the Commercial System. 

ed as a great and permanent advantage ; but the high tem- 
porary profits of the trade have occasioned a great ac- 
cumulation of capital and consequently a great demand 
for labour ; while the extending markets abroad and the 
new values thrown into the market at home, have created 
such a demand for the products of every species of in- 
dustry, agricultural and colonial as well as commercial 
and manufacturing, as to prevent a fall of profits. 

This country from the extent of its lands and its rich co- 
lonial possessions, has a large arena {or the employment 
of an increasing capital ; and the general rate of its pro- 
fits are not, as it appears, very easily and rapidly reduced 
by accumulation. But a country such as we are consider- 
ing, engaged principally in manufactures, and unable to 
direct its industry to the same variety of pursuits, would 
sooner find its rate of profits diminished by an increase 
of capital, and no ingenuity in machinery could save it, 
afler a certain period, from low profits and low wages, 
and their natural consequences, a check to population. 

Thirdly, a country which is obliged to purphase both 
the raw materials of its manufactures and the means of 
subsistence, for its population from foreign countries, is 
almost entirely dependent for the increase of its wealth 
and population on the increasing wealth and demands of 
the couHtries with which it trades. 

It has been sometimes said-that a manufacturing coun- 
try is no more dependent upon tlie country which sup- 
plies it with food and raw materials, than the agricultural 
country is on that which manufactures for it, but this is 
really an abuse of terms. A country with great resour- 



Chap. IX. POPULATION 81 



v^ 



Of the Commercial System. 



ces ill land may find itdecidedly for its advantage to em- 
ploy the main part of its capital in cultivation and to im- 
port its manufactures. In so doing, it will often employ 
the whole of its industry most productively, and most 
rapidly increase its stock. But, if the slackness of its 
neighbours, in manufacturing, or any other cause, should 
either considerably check or altogether prevent the impor- 
tation of manufactures, a country with food and raw 
materials provided at home cannot long be at a loss. For 
a time it would not certainly be so well supplied; but 
manufacturers and artisans would soon be found, and 
would soon acquire tolerable skill;* and though the capi- 
tal and population of the country might not, under the 
new circumstances in which it was placed, increase so 
rapidly as before, it would still have the powt^r of increas- 
ing in both to a great and almost undefinable extent. 

On the other hand, if food and raw materials were de- 
fied to a nation merely manufacturing, it is obvious that 
it could not longer exist. But not only does the absolute 
existence of such a nation, on an extreme supposition, de- 
pend upon its foreign commerce, but its progress in 
wealth must be almost entirely measured by the progress 
and demand of the countries which deal with it. How- 
ever skillful, industrious and saving such a nation might 
be, if its customers, from indolence and want of accumu- 
lation, would not or could not take off a yearly increasing 
value of its commodities, the effects of its skill and ma- 
chinery would be but of very short duration. 

This has been fully exemplified in America (1816) 



m ESSAY ON Book III 



Of the Commercial System. 



Tliat the cheapness ol manufactured commodities, oc- 
casioned by skill and machinery in one country, is calcu- 
lated to encourage an increase of raw produce in others 
no person can doubt ; but we know at the same time that 
high profits may continue for a considerable period in an 
indol-ent and ill-governed state, without producing- an in- 
crease of wealth; yet, unless such an increase of wealth 
and demand were produced in the surrounding countries, 
the increasing ingenuity and exertions of i.\yd manufactur- 
ing and commercial state would be lost in continually fall- 
ing prices. It would not only be obliged, as its skill and 
capital increased, to. give a larger quantity of manufactur- 
ed produce for the raw produce which it received ii» re- 
turn ; but it might be unable, ey,en with the temptation 
of reduced prices, to stimulate its customers to such pur- 
chases as would allow of an increasing importation of 
food and raw materials ; and without such an increasing 
importation, it is quite obvious that the population mus,t 
become stationary. 

It would come to the same thing, whether this in- 
ability to obtain an increasing quantity of food were 
occasioned by the advancing money price of corn 
or the falling money price of manufactures. In either 
case the effect would be the same ; and it is certain that 
tliis eflect might take place in either way, from increas- 
ing competition and accumulation in the manufacturing 
nation, and the want of them in the agricultural, long be- 
fore an essential increase of difficulty had occurred in 
•the production of corn. 

Fourthly. A nation which is obliged to purchase frojii 



Chap. IX. POPULATION. 



Of tlie Commercial System. 



others nearly the whole of its raw materials, and tlie 
means of its subsistence, is not only dependent entirely up- 
on the demands of its customers, as they may be variously 
affected by indolence, industry or caprice, but it is sub- 
jected to a necessary and unavoidable diminution of de- 
mand in the natural progress of these countries towards 
that proportion of skill and capital \\hich they may 
reasonably be expected after a certain time to possess. 
It is generally an accidental and temporary, not a na- 
tural and permanent, division of labour which con- 
stitutes one state the nianufacturer and the carrier of 
others. While, in these landed nations, agricultural 
profits continue very high, it may fully answer to 
them to pay others as their manufacturers aiid car- 
riers ; hut when the profits on land fall, or the tenures 
on Avhich it can be held are not such as to encourage the 
investment of an accumulating capital, the owner of this 
capital will naturally look towards commerce and manu- 
factures for its employment; and, according to the just 
reasoning of Adam Smith and the Economists, finding at 
home both the materials of manufactures, the means of 
subsistence, and the power of carrying on their own 
trade with foreign countries, they will probably be able 
to conduct the business of manufacturing and carrying 
for themselves at a cheaper rate than if they allowed it 
to continue in the hands of others. As long as the agri- 
cultural nations continued to apply their increasing capi- 
tal principally to the land, this increase of capital would 
be of the greatest possible advantage to the manufactur- 
ing and commercial natioii. It would be indeed the, main 



84 ESSAY ON Book. III. 

Of the Commercial System. 

cause and great regulator of its progress in wealth and 
population. But after they had turned their attention to 
manufactures and commerce, their further increase of 
capital would he the signal of decay and destruction to 
the manufactures and commerce which they had before 
supported. And thus, in the natural progress of nation- 
al improvement, and without the competition of superior 
skill and capital, a purely commercial state must be un- 
dersold and driven out of the markets by those who pos- 
sess the advantage of land. 

In the distribution of wealth during the progress of im- 
provement, the interests of an independent state are es- 
sentially different from those of a province, a point which 
has not been sufficiently attended to. Jf agricultural capi- 
tal increases and agricultural profits diminish in Sussex, 
the overflowing stock will go to London, Manchester, 
Liverpool, or some other place where it can probably be 
engaged in manufactures or commerce more advantage- 
ously than at home. But if Sussex were an independent 
kingdom, this could not take place ; and the corn whicli is 
now sent to London must be withdrawn to support manu- 
facturers and traders living within its confines. If Eng- 
land therefore had continued to be separated into the se- 
ven kingdoms of the Heptarchy, London could not possi- 
bly have been what it is ; and that distribution of wealth 
and population which takes place at present, and which 
we may fairly presume is the most beneficial to the whole 
of the realm, would have been essentially changed, if the 
object had been to accumulate the greatest quantity of 
wealth and population in particular districts instead of the 



Chap. IX. POPULATION. 85 



Of the Commercial System. 



whole island. But at all times the interest of each inde- 
pendent state is to accumulate the greatest quantity of 
wealth within its limits. Consequently, the interest of an 
independent state, with regard to the countries with which 
it trades, can rarely be the same as the interest of a pro- 
vince with regard to the empire to which it belongs, and 
the accumulation of capital which would occasion the 
withdrawing of the exports of corn in the one case would 
leave them perfectly undisturbed in the other. 

If, from the operation of one or more of the causes 
above enumerated, the importation of corn into a man- 
ufacturing and commercial country should be essentially 
checked, and should either actually decrease, or be pre- 
vented from increasing, it is quite evident that its pop- 
ulation must be checked nearly in the same proportion. 

Venice presents a striking instance of a commercial 
state, at once stopped in its progress to wealth and pop- 
ulation by foreign competition. The discovery made by 
the Portuguese of a passage to India by the Cape of 
Good Hope completely turned the channel of the Indian 
trade. The high profits of the Venetians, which had 
been the foundation of their rapidly increasing wealth 
and of their extraordinary preponderance as a naval and 
commercial power, were not only suddenly reduced, but 
the trade itself, on which, those high profits had been 
made, was almost annihilated, and their power and wealth 
were shortly contracted to these more confined limits 
which suited their natural resources. / 

In the middle of the 1 5th century, Bruges in Flanders 
was the great (entrepot of the trade between the north and 



M 



86 ESSAY ON Book. III. 

Of the Commercial System, 

the south of Europe. Early in the 16th century its com- 
merce began to decline under the competition of Antwerp. 
Many English and foreign merchants in consequence 
left the declining city, to settle in that which was 
rapidly increasing in commerce and wealth. About the 
middle of the 16th century Antwerp was at the zenith of 
its power. It contained above a hundred thousand inha- 
bitants, and was universally allowed to be the most illus- 
trious mercantile city, and to carry on the most exten- 
sive and richest commerce, of any in the north of Eu- 
rope. 

The rising greatness of Amsterdam was favoured by 
the unfortunate siege and capture of Antwerp by the duke 
of Parma ; and the competition of the extraordinary in- 
dustry and persevering exertions of the Hollanders not on- 
ly prevented Antwerp from recovering her commerce, but 
gave a severe blow to the foreign trade of almost all the 
other Hanse Towns. 

The subsequent decline of the trade of Amsterdam it- 
self was caused partly, by the low profits arising from 
home competition and abundance of capital, partly by ex- 
cessive taxation, which raised the price of the necessa- 
ries of life-, but more than either perhaps, by the pro- 
gress of other nations possessing greater natural advan- 
tages, and being able, even with inferior skill, industry 
and capital, beneficially to carry on much of that trade 
which had before fallen almost exclusively into the hands 
of the Dutch. 

As early as 1669 and 1670, when sir William Temple 
pas in bolland, the effects of abundance of capital and do- 



Chap. IX. POPULATION. 87 



Of the Commercial System. 



mestic competition were such, that most of the foreign 
trades were loosing ones, except the Indian, and that 
none of them gave a profit of more than two or three per 
cent* In such a state of things both the power and the 
Avill to save must be greatly diminished. The accumula- 
tion of capital must have been either stationary or de- 
clining, or at the best very slowly progressive-, In fact 
Sir. William Temple gives it as his opinion that the trade 
of Holland had for some years passed its meridian, and 
begun sensibly to decay .f Subsequently, when the pro- 
gress of other nations was still more marked, it appeared 
from undoubted documents that most of the trades of Hol- 
land, as well as its fisheries, had decidedly fallen off, and 
that no branch of its commerce had retained its former 
vigour, except the American and African trades, and that of 
the Rhine and Maese, which are independent of foreign 
power and competition. 

In 1669, the whole population of Holland and West 
Friezeland was estimated by John de Witt at 2,400,000.| 
In 1778, the population of the seven provinces was esti- 
mated only at 2,000,000 ;§ and thus in the course of a- 
bove a hundred years, the population,^ instead of increas- 
ing, as is usual, had greatly diminished. 

In all these cases of commereial states, the progress 
of wealth and population seems to have been checked by 
one or more of the causes above mentioned, which must 



^Temple's Works, vol. i. p. 69. fol. 
fid. p. 67. 

{Interest of Holland, vol. i. p. 9. 
§Richesse de la Hollande, vol, ii p. .S49. 



88 ESSAY ON Book. Ill 



Of the Commercial System. 



necessarily affect more or less the power of commanding 
the means of subsistence. 

Universally it may be observed, that if from any cause or 
causes whatever, the funds for the maintenance of labour 
in any country, cease to be progressive, the effective de- 
mand for labour will also cease to be progressive ; and 
wages will be reduced to that sum, which, under the ex- 
isting prices of provisions, and the existing habits of the 
people, will just keep up, and no more than keep up, a 
stationary population. A state so circumstanced is under 
a moral impossibility of increasing, whatever may be the 
plenty of corn, or however high may be the profits of 
stock in other countries.* It may indeed at a subsequent 
period, and under new circumstances, begin to increase 
again. If by some happy invention in mechanics, the dis- 
covery of some new channel of trade, or an unusual in- 
crease of agricultural wealth and population, in the sur- 
rounding countries, its exports, of whatever kind were 
to become unusually in demand, it might again import an 
increasing quantity of corn and might again increase 
its population. But as long as it is unable to make 
yearly additions to its imports of food, it will evi- 
dently be unable to furnish the means of support to an in- 



*It is a curious fact, that among the causes of the decline of the 
Dutch trade. Sir. William Temple reckons, the cheapness of corn, 
which, he says, "has been for these dozen years, or more, general 
in these parts of Europe." (vol. i. p. 69.) This cheapness, he says, 
impeded the vent of spices and other Indian commodities among the 
Baltic nations, by diminishing their power of purchasing. 



Chxtp. IX. POPULATIOIS.. 89 

Of the Commercial System. 

creasing population ; and it will necessarily experience 
this inability, when from the state of its commercial trans- 
actions, the funds for the maintainance of its labour be- 
come stationary, or begin to decline. 



b6ok in— chap, x 



Of Systems of JJgriculture and Commerce combined. 

In a country the most exclusively confined to agricul- 
ture, some of its raw materials will always be worked 
up for domestic use. In the most commercial state, not 
absolutely confined to the walls of a town, some part of 
the food of its inhabitants, or of its cattle, will be drawn 
from the small territory in its neighborhood. But in 
speaking of systems of agriculture and commerce com- 
bined, something much further than this kind of combi- 
nation is intended ; and it is meant to refer to countries 
where the resources in land, and the capitals employed 
in commerce and manufactures, are both considerable, 
and neither preponderating greatly over the other. 

A country so circumstanced possesses the advantages 
of both systems, while at the same time it is free from the 
peculia' evils which belong to each, taken separately. 

The prosperity of manufactures and commerce in any 
state implies at once that it has freed itself from the worst 
parts of the feudal system. It shews that the great body 
of the people are not in a state of servitude ; that they 
have both the power and the will to save ; that when cap- 
ital accumulates it can find the means of secure employ- 
ment, and consequently that the government is such as to 



Chap. X. ESSAY ON POPULATION. 91 

Of Systems of Agriculture and Commerce combined. 

afford the necessary protection to property. Under these 
circumstances, it is scarcely possible that it should ever 
experience that premature stagnation in the demand for 
labour, and the produce of the soil, which at times has 
marked the history of most of the nations of Europe. — 
In a country in which manufactures and commerce flou- 
rish, the produce of the soil will always find a ready mar- 
ket at home ; and such a market is peculiarly favorable 
to the progressive increase of capital. But the pro- 
gressive increase of capital, and of the funds for 
the maintenance of labour, is the great cause of a de- 
mand for labour, and of high corn wages, while the high 
relative price of corn, occasioned by the improved ma- 
chinery and extended capital employed in manufactures, 
together with the prosperity of foreign commerce, ena- 
bles the labourer to exchange any given portion of his 
earnings in corn for a large proportion both of domestic 
and foreign conveniences and luxuries. Even when the 
effective demand for labour begins to slacken, and the 
corn wages to be reduced, still the high relative value of 
corn keeps up comparatively the condition of the labour- 
ing classes ; and though their increase is checked, yet a 
very considerable body of them may still be well lodged 
and well clothed, and able to indulge themselves in the 
conveniences and luxuries of foreign produce. Nor can 
they ever be reduced to the miserable condition of the 
poor in those countries, where, at the same time that the 
demand for labour is stationary, the value of corn, com- 
pared with manufactures and foreign commodities is ex- 
tremely low. 



92 ESSAY ON Book III 

Of Systems of Agriculture 

All the peculiar disadvantages therefore of a purely 
agricultural country are avoided by the growth and pros- 
perity of manufactures and commerce. 

In the same manner it will be found that the peculiar 
disadvantages attending states merely manufacturing and 
commercial will be avoided by the possession of resources 
in land. 

A country which raises its own food cannot by any 
sort of foreign competition be reduced at once to a ne- 
cessarily declining population. If the exports of a mere- 
ly commercial country be essentially diminished by for- 
eign competition, it may lose, in a very short time, its 
power of supporting the same number of people; but if 
the exports of a country which has resources in land be 
diminished, it will merely lose some of its foreign conve- 
niences and luxuries ; and the great and most important 
of all trades, the domestic trade carried on between the 
towns and the country, will remam comparatively undis- 
turbed. It may indeed be checked in the rate of its pro- 
gress for a time by the want of the same stimulus ; but 
there is no reason for its becoming retrograde ; and there 
is no doubt that the capital thrown out of employment by 
the loss of foreign trade will not lie idle. It will find 
some channel in which it can be employed with advantage, 
though not with the same advantage as before ; and will 
be able to maintain an increasing population, though not 
increasing at the same rate as under the stimulus of a 
prosperous foreign trade. 

The effects of home competition will in like hianner 
be very different in the two states we are comparing. 



Chap. X. POPULATION. 93 



and Commerce, combined. 



In a state merely manufacturing and commercial, home 
competition and abundance of capital may so reduce the 
price of manufactured, compared with raw produce, that 
the increased capital employed in manufactures may not 
procure in exchange an increased quantity of food. In a 
country where there are resources in land this cannot 
happen; and though from improvements in machineiy and 
the decreasing fertility of the new land taken into cul- 
tivation, a greater quantity of manufactures will be given 
for raw produce, yet the mass of manufactures can never 
fall in value, owing to a competition of capital in this spe- 
cies of industry, unaccompanied by a correspondent com- 
petition of capital on land. 

It should also be observed that in a state, the revenue 
of which consists solely in profits and wages, the dimi- 
nution of profits and wages may greatly impair its dis- 
posable income. The increase in the amount of capital 
and in the number of labourers may in many cases not be 
sufficient to make up for the diminished rate of profits and 
wages. But where the revenue of the country consists of 
rents as well as pjofits and wages, a great part of what is 
lost in profits and wages is gained in rents, and the dis- 
posable income remains comparatively unimpaired 

Another eminent advantage possessed by a nation which 
is rich in land, as well as in commerce and manufactures, 
is, that the progress of its wealth and population is in a 
comparatively slight degree dependent upon the state and 
progress of other countries. A nation, whose wealth de- 
pends exclusively on manufactures and commerce, cannot 
increase without an increase in the raw products of the 
countries with which it trades ; or taking away a share of 
N 



94 . ESSAY ON Book III 



Of Systems of Agriculture 

what they have been in the habit of actually consuming^ 
which will rarely be parted with; and thus the ignorance 
and indolence of others may not only be prejudicial, but 
fatal to its progress. ' 

A country with resources in land can never be exposed 
to these inconveniences ; and if its industry, ingenuity 
and economy increase, its wealth and population will in- 
crease, whatever may be the situation and conduct of the 
nations with which it trades. When its manufacturing 
capital becomes redundant, and manufactured commodi- 
ties are too cheap, it will have no occasion to wait for 
the increasing raw products of its neighbors. The trans- 
fer of its own redundant capital to its own land will raise 
fresh products, against which its manufactures may be 
exchanged, and by the double operation of diminishing 
coraoaratively the supply, and increasing the demand, en- 
hance their price. A similar operation, when raw pro- 
duce is too abundant, will restore the level between the 
profits of agriculture and manufactures. And upon the 
same principle the stock of the country will be distriba- 
ted through its various and distant provinces, according to 
the advantag:es presented by each situation for the em- 
ployment, either of agricultural or manufacturing capi- 
tal. 

A country in which, in this manner, agriculture, manu- 
factures, and commerce, and all the different parts of a 
larsre territory, act and re-act upon each other in turn, 
Divrht evident! V eo on increasing in riches and strength, 
although surrounded bv Bisho^ ^erkely's wall of brass. 
Such a country would naturally make the most of its fo- 



'^ 



Chap. X POPULATION. 95 

and Commerce, combined. 

reign commerce, whatever might be the actual state of 
it; and its increase or decrease would be the addition or 
removal of a powerful stimulus to its own produce , but 
still the increase of this produce, to a very considerable 
extentj vvould be independent of foreign countries ; and 
though it might be retarded by a failure of foreign conv 
merce, it could not either be stopped or be made retro- 
grade. 

A fourth advantage derived from the union of agricul- 
ture and manufactures, particularly when they are nearly 
balanced, is, that the capital and population of such a 
country can never be forced to make a retrograde move- 
ment, merely by the natural progress of other countries 
to that state of improvement to which they are all con- 
stantly tending 

According to all general principles, it will finally an- 
swer to most landed nations, both to manufacture for 
themselves, and to conduct their own commerce. That 
raw cottons should be shipped in America, carried some 
thousands of miles to another country, unshipped there, 
to be manufactured and shipped again for the American 
market, is a state of things which cannot be permanent. 
That it may last for sonoe time there can be no doubt; 
and I am very far from meaning to insinuate that an ad- 
vantage, while it lasts, should not be used, merely be- 
cause it will not continue forever. But if the advantage 
be in its nature temporary, it is surely prudent to have 
this in view, and to use it in such a wav, that when it 
ceast's, it may not have been productive, on the whole, ol 
more evil than good. 



96 ESSAY ON Book. HI. 

Of Systems of Agriculture 

If a country, owing to temporary advantages of this 
kind, should have its commerce and manufactures so 
greatly preponderate as to make it necessary to support a 
large portion of its people on foreign corn, it is certain 
that the progressive improvement of foreign countries in 
manufactures and commerce might, after a time, subject it 
to a period of poverty and of retrograde movements in 
capita] and population, which might more than counter- 
balance the temporary benefits before enjoyed. While a 
nation in which the commercial and manufacturing popu- 
lation continued to be supported by its agriculture, might 
receive a very considerable stimulus to both, from such 
temporary advantages, without being exposed to any es- 
sential evil on their ceasing. 

The countries which thus unite great landed resources 
with a prosperous state of commerce and manufactures, 
and in which the commercial part of the population never 
essentially exceeds the agricultural part, are eminently- 
secure from sudden reverses. Their increasing wealth 
seems to be out of the reach of all common accidents ; 
and there is no reason to say that they might not go on 
increasing in riches and population for hundreds, nay, al- 
most thousands of years. 

We must not however imagine that there is no limit 
to this progress though it is distant, and has certainly not 
been attained by any large landed nation yet known. 

We have already seen that the limit to the population 
of commercial nations is the period when, from the actu- 
al state of foreign markets, they are unable regularly to 
import an increasing quantity of food. And the limit to 



Chap. X. POPULATION. 9T 



and Commerce, combined. 



the population of a nation which raises the whole of its food 
on its own territory is, when the land has been so fully oc- 
cupied and worked, that the employment of another la- 
bourer on it will not on an average raise an additional 
quantity of food sufficient to support a family of such 
a size as will admit of an increase of population. 

TJjis is evidently the extreme practical limit to the pro- 
gress of population, which no nation has ever yet reach- 
ed, nor indeed ever will ; since no allowance has been 
here made either for other necessaries besides food, or 
for the profits of stock, both of which, however low, 
must always be something not inconsiderable. 

Yet even this limit is very far short of what the earth 
is capable of producing, if all were employed upon it 
who were not employed in the production of other neces- 
saries; that is, if soldiers, sailors, menial servants, aad 
all the artificers of luxuries, were made to labour upon 
the land. They would not indeed produce the support 
of a family, and ultimately not even of themselves ; but 
till the earth absolutely refused to yield aiiy more, they 
would continue to add something to the common stock ; 
and by increasing the means of subsistence, would afford 
the means of supporting an increasing population. The 
whole people of a country might thus be employed du- 
ring their whole time in the production of mere necessa- 
ries, and no leisure be left for other pursuits of any kind. 
But this state of things could only be effected by the 
forced direction of the national industry into one channel 
by public authority. Upon the principle of private pro- 
perty, w^hich it may be fairly presumed will always pre- 



98 E^SAY ON Pook III 

Of Systems of Agriculture 

vail in society, it could never happen. With a view to 
the individual interest either of a landlord or farmer, no 
labourer can ever be employed on the soil who does not 
produce more than the value of his wages; and if these 
wages be not on an average sufficient to maintain a wife, 
and rear two children to the age of marriage, it is evi- 
dent that both the population and produce must come to a 
stand. Consequently, at the most extreme practical li- 
mit of population, the state of the land must be such as 
to enable the last employed labourers to produce the main- 
tenance of as many, probably, as four persons. 

And it is happy for mankiixl that such are the laws of 
nature. If the competition for the necessaries of life, in 
the progress of population, could reduce the whole hu- 
man race to the necessity of incessant labour for them, 
man would be continually tending to a state of degrada- 
tion ; and all the improvements which has marked the 
middle stages of his career would be completely lost at 
the end of it ; but in reality, and according to the univer- 
sal principle of private property, at the period when it 
will cease to answer to employ more labour upon the land, 
the excess of raw produce, not actually consumed by the 
cultivators, will, in the shape of rents, profits and wages, 
particularly the first, bear nearly as great a proportion to 
the whole as at any previous period, and, at all events, 
sufficient to support a large part of the society living ei- 
ther without manual labour, or employing themselves in 
modifying the raw materials of the land into the forms 
best suited to the gratification of man. 

When we refer therefore to the practical limits of pop- 



CJmp. X. POPULATION 99 



and Commerce, combined. 



Illation, it is of great importance to recollect that they 
must be always very far short of the utmost power of the 
earth to produce food. 

It is also of great importance to recollect that long be- 
fore this practical limit is attained in any country the rate 
of the increase of population will gradually diminish. 
When the capital of a country becomes stationary from 
bad government, indolence, extravagance, or a sudden 
shock to commerce, it is just possible that the check to 
population may in some degree be sudden, though in that 
case it cannot take place without a considerable convul- 
sion. But when the capital of a country comes to a stop 
from the continued progress of accumulation and the ex- 
haustion of the cultivable land, both the profits of stock and 
the wages of labour must have l^een gradually diminish- 
ing for a long period, till they are both ultimately so low 
as to atford no further encouragement to an increase ot 
stock, and no further means for the support of an in- 
creasing population. If we could suppose that the capi- 
tal employed upon the land was at all times as great as 
could possibly be applied with the same profit, and 
there were no agricultui-al improvements to save labour, 
it is obvious that, as accumulation proceeded, profits and 
wages would regularly fall, and the diminished rate in 
the progress of population would be quite regular. But 
practically this can never happen ; and various causes, 
both natural and artificial, will concur to prevent this reg- 
ularity, and occasion great variations at different times in 
the rate at which the population proceeds towards it« 
final limit. 



100 ESSAY ON Book. Ill 

Of Systems of Agriculture 

In the first place, land is practically almost always un- 
derstocked with capital. This arises partly from the usual 
tenures on which farms are held, which, by discouraging 
the transfer of capital from commerce and manufactures, 
leaves it principally to be generated on the land ; and 
partly from the very nature of much of the soil of almost 
all large countries, which is such that the employment of 
a small capital upon it may be little productive, while the 
employment of a large capital in draining, or in changing 
the character of the soil by a sufficient quantity of natu- 
ral and artificial manures, may be productive in a high 
degree; and partly, also, from the circumstance that af- 
ter every fall of profits and wages there will often be 
room for the employment of a much greater capital upon 
the land than is at the command of those, who, by being 
in the actual occupation of farms, can alone so employ it. 

Secondly ; improvements in agriculture. If new and 
superior modes of cultivation be invented, by which not 
only the land is better managed, but is worked with less 
labour, it is obvious that inferior land may be cultivated 
at higher profits than could be obtained from richer land 
before ; and an improved system of culture, with the use 
of better instruments, may for a long period more than 
counterbalance the tendency of an extended cultivation 
and a great increase of capital to yield smaller propor- 
tionate returns. 

Thirdly ; improvements in manufactures. When by in- 
creased skill and the invention of improved machinery in 
manufactures, one man becomes capable of doing as much 
as eight or ten could before, it is well known, that, from 



Chap. X. POPULATION. 10,1 

and Commerce, combined, 

tlie principle of home competition and the consequent 
great increase ot quantity, the prices of such manufac- 
tures will greatly fall; and, as far as they include the ne- 
cessaries and accustomed conveniences of labourers and 
farmers, they must tend to diminish that portion of tlie 
value of the whole produce which is consumed necessari- 
ly on the land, and leave a larger remainder. From this 
larger remainder may be drawn a higher rate of profits, 
notwithstanding the increase of capital and extension of 
cultivation. 

Fourthly; the prosperity of foreign commerce. If from 
u. prosperous foreign commerce, our labour and domestic 
commodities rise considerably in price, while foreign com- 
modites are advanced comparatively very little, an event 
which is very common, it is evident that the farmer or 
labourer will be able to obtain the tea, sugar, cottons, 
linens, leather, tallow, timber, &c., which he stands in 
need of, for a smaller quantity ot corn or labour than be- 
fore ; and this increased power of purchasing foreign 
commodities will liave precisely the same effect, in al- 
lowing the means of an extended cultivation without a 
fall of profits, as the improvements in manufactures just 
referred to. 

Fifthly ; a temporary increase in the relative price of 
raw produce from increased demand. Allowing, what is 
certainly not true, that a rise in the price of raw produce 
will, after a certain number ot years, occasion a propor- 
tionate rise in labour* and other conimodities, yet, during 

*A rise which is occasioned exclusively by the increased quantity 

o 



102 ESSAY on' :Book. HI. 

Of Systems of Agriculture 

the lime that the price of raw produce takes the lead, it 
is obvious that the profits of cultivation may increase un- 
der an extended agriculture, and a continued accumula- 
tion of capital. And these intervals, it should be observ- 
ed, must be of infinite importance in the progress of the 
wealth of a landed nation, particularly with reference to 
the causes of deficient capital upon the land before men- 
tioned. If the land for the most part generates the new 
capital which is employed in extending its cultivation ; 
and if the employment of a considerable capital for a 
certain period will often put land in such a state, that it 
can be cultivated afterwards at comparatively little ^i'- 
pense; a period of high agricultural profits, though it 
Wiay last only eigh< or ten years, may often be the means 
of giving to a country what is equivalent to a fresh quan- 
tity of land. 

Though it is unquestionably and necessarily true, there- 
fore, tha.t the tendency of a continually increasing capital 
aud extending cultivation is to occasion a progressive 
fall both of profits and wages ; yet the causes above enu- 
merated are evidently sufficient to account for great and 
long irregularities in thjs progress. 

We see, in consequence, in all the states of Europe, 
grea<^ variations at different periods in the progress of 
their capital and population, After slumbering for years 



of labour which may be required in the progress of society to raise a 
given quantity of corn on the last land taken into cultivation, must of 
course be peculiar to raw produce, and will not be communicated to 
those commodities, in, the production of which there is no increase cff 
labour. 



Chap. X POPULATION. 10j8 

and Commerce, combined, 

in a state almost stationary, some countries have made a 
sudden start, and have begun increasing at a rate almost 
approaching to new colonies. Russia and parts of Prus- 
sia have afforded instances of this kind, and have con- 
tinued this rate of progress after the accumulation of 
capital and the extension of cultivation had been proceed- 
ing with great rapidity for many years. 

From the operation of the same cauijes we have seen 
similar variations in our own country. About the middle 
of last century the interest of money Avas at 3 per cent.; 
and we may conclude that the profits of stock were near- 
ly in proportion. At that time, as far as can be collect- 
ed from the births and marriages, the population was in- 
creasing but slowly. From 1720 to 1750, a period of 
SO years, the increase is calculated to have been only a- 
bout 900,000 on a population of 5,565 000*. Since this 
period it cannot be doubted that the capital of the coun- 
try has been prodigiously enlarged, and its cultivation 
very greatly expended ; yet during the last twenty years, 
we have seen the interest of money at above 5 per cent., 
with profits in proportion; and, from 1800 to 1811, an 
increase of population equal to 1,200,000 on 9,287,000, 
a rate of increase about two anjl a half times as great as 
at the former period. 

But, notwithstanding these causes of irregularity in the 
progress of capital and population, it is quite certain that 
they cannot reach their necessary practical limit but by 
a very gradual process. Before the accumulation of cap* 

•Population Abs^acts, Preliminary Observations, table, p. xxv. 



104 ESSAY ON POPULATION. Book III. 

Of Systems of Agriculture and Commerce combined. 

ital comes to a stop from necessiiyy the profits of stock 
must for a long time have been so low as to afford scarce- 
ly any encouragement to an excess of saving above ex- 
penditure ; and before the progress of population is final- 
ly stopped, the real wages of labour must have been gra- 
dually'diminishing, till, under the existing habits of the 
pfeople^ th€!y could only support such families as woulfl 
just keep up, and no more than keep up, the actual popu- 
lation. 

It appears, then, that it is the union or the agricultural 
and commercial systems, and not either of them taken 
separately, that is calculated to produce the greatest na- 
tional prosperity ; that a country with an extensive and 
rich territory, the cultivation of which is stimulated by 
improvements in agriculture, manufactures and foreign 
commerce, has such various and abundant resources, that 
it is extremely difficult to say when they will reach their 
limits. That there is, however, a limit which, if the 
capital and population of a country continue increasing, 
they must ultimately reach, and cannot pass ; and that 
this limit, upon the principle of private property, must 
be far short of the utmost power of the earth to produce 
food. 



CHAPTER Xr 



Of Corn-Laws. Bounties upon Exportation. 

It has been observed that some countries, with great 
resources in land, and an evident power of supporting a 
groatly increased population from their own soil, have 
yet been in the habit of importing large quanties of foreign 
corn, and have become dependent upon other states for a 
great part of tlieir supplies. 

The causes which may lead to this state of things seem 
to be chiefly the following : 

First ; any obstacles which the laws, constitutions and 
customs of a country present to the accumulation of ca-* 
pital on the land, which do not apply with equal force to 
the increasmg employment of capital in commerce and 
manufactures. 

In every state in which the feudal system has pre- 
vailed, there are laws and customs of this kind, which 
prevent the free division and alienation of land like other 
property, and render the preparations for an extension 
of cultivation often both very difficult and very expensive. 
Improvements m such countries are chiefly carried on 
by tenants, a large part of whom have not leases, or at 
least leases of any length ; and though their wealth and 
respectability have of late years very greatly increased 



106 ESSAY ON Book. Ill 

Of Corn-Laws, and 

yet it is not possible to put them on a footing with enter- 
prising owners, and to give them the same independence, 
and th(* same encouragement to employ their capitals with 
spirit, as merchants and manufacturers. 

Secondly, a system of direct or indirect taxation, of 
auch a nature as to throw a weight upon the agriculture 
of a country, which is either unequal, or, from peculiar 
circumstances, can be better borne by commerce and 
manufactures. 

It is universally allowed that a direct tax on cora 
grown at home, if not counterbalanced by a correspon- 
ding tax on the importation of it, might be such as to de- 
stroy at once the cultivation of grain, and make a coun- 
try import the whole of its consumption; and a partial ef- 
fect of the same kind would follow, if, by a system of ni- 
direct taxation the general price of labour were-raised and 
yet by means of drawbacks on home and foreign commo- 
dities, by an abundance of colonial produce, and by those 
peculiar articles*, the demand for which abroad would 
not be much affected by the increase of price, the value 
of the whole of the exports, though not the quantity might 
admit of increase. 

Thirdly; improved machinery, combined wath exten- 
sive capital and a very advantageous division of labour. 

If in any country, by means of capital and machinery, 
one man be enabled to do the work of ten, it is quite ob- 
vious, that before the same advantages are extended to 



*A rise in the price of labour in China would certainly increase tJie 
roturns wjiich it receive for its teasi 



Chap. XL POPULATION. lOT 



Bounties upon Exportation. 



other countries, a rise in the price of lahour will but ve- 
ry little interfere with the power of selling those sorts of 
commodities, in the production of which the capital and 
machinery are so effectively applied. It is quite true 
that an advance in the necessary wages of labour, which 
increases the expense of raising corn, may have the same 
effect upon many commodities besides corn; and if there 
Were no others, no encouragement Avould be given to the 
importation of foreign grain, as there might be no means 
by which it could be purchased, cheaper abroad. But a 
large class of the exportable commodities of a commer- 
cial country are of a different description. They are ei- 
ther articles in a considerable degree peculiar to the 
country and its dependencies, or such as have been pro- 
duced by superior capital and machinery, the prices of 
which are determined rather by domestic than foreign 
competition. All commodities of this kind will evidently 
be able to support without essential injury an advance in 
the price of labour, some permanently, and others for a 
considerable time. The rise in the price of the commo- 
dity so occasioned, or rather the prevention of that fall 
which would otherwise have taken place, may always in- 
deed have the effect of decreasing in some degree the 
quantity of the commodity exported ; but it by no means 
follows that it will diminish the whole of its bullion value 
in the foreign country, which is precisely what determines 
the bullion value, and generally the quantity of the re- 
turns. If cottons in this country were now to fall to 
half their present price, we should undoubtedly export a 
greater quantity than we do at present j b.ut I very much 



lOS^ ESSAY ON Book III 

Of Corn-Laws, and 

doubt whether we should export double the quantity, and 
yet we must do this to enable us to command as much 
foreign produce as before. In this case, as in numerous 
others of the same kind, quantity and value go together 
to a certain point, though not at an equal pace ; but be- 
yond this point, a further increase of quantity only dimi*- 
nishes the whole value produced, and the amount of the 
returns that can be obtained for it. 

It is obvious then that a country, notwithstanding a 
bigh comparative price of labour and of materials, may 
easily stand a competition with foreigners in those commo- 
dities to Avhich it can apply a superior capital and ma- 
chinery with great effect; although such a price of labour 
and materials might give an undisputed advantage to fo- 
reigners in agriculture and some other sorts of produce, 
"where the same savihg of labour cannot take place. Con- 
sequently such a country may find it cheaper to purchase 
a considerable part of its supplies of grain from abroad 
with its manufactures and peculiar products, than to grow 
the whole at home. 

If, from all or any of these causes, a nation becomes 
habitually dependent on foieign countries for the support 
of a considerable portion of its population, it must evi- 
dently be subjected, while such dependence lasts, to some 
of those evils which belong to a nation purely manufac- 
turing and commercial. In one respect, indeed, it will 
still continue to have a great superiority. It will possess 
resources in land, which may be resorted to when its 
manufactures and commerce, either from foreign compe- 
tition, or any other causes, begin to fall. But, to balance 



Chap. XI. roi ULATION 109 



Bounties upon Exportation. 



this advantage^ it will be subjected, during the time that 
large importations are necessarj-, to mucli greater fluctu- 
ations in its supplies of corn, than countries wltolly man- 
ufacturing and commercial. The demands of IJolland 
and Hamburgh may be known with considerable accura- 
cy by the merchants who supply them. If they increase 
they increase gradually, and, not being subject from year 
to year to any great and sudden variations^ it might be 
safe and practicable to make regular contracts for the 
average quantity wanted. But it is otherwise with such 
countries as England and Spain. Their wants are neces- 
sarily very variable, from the variableness of the seasons, 
and if -the merchants were to contract Avith ejcporling 
countries for the quantity required in average years, two 
or three abundant seasons might ruin them. They must 
necessarily wait to see the slate of the crops in each year, 
in order safely to regulate their proceedings; and though 
it is certainly true that it is only the deficiency from the 
average crop, and not the whole deficiency, which 
may be considered altogether in the .light of a new 
demand in Europe ; yet the largeness and previous un- 
certainty of this whole deficiency, the danger of making' 
contracts fdr a stated quantity annually, and the greater 
chance of hostile combinations against large and warlike 
states, must greatly aggravate the difficulties of procur- 
ing a steady supply ; and if it be true that unfavorable 
seasons are not unfrequently general, it is impossible to 
conceive that they should not occasionally be subject to 
great variations of price. 
It has been sometimes stated that scarcities are partial, 

r 



110 ESSAY ON Book. III. 

Of Corn-Laws, and 

riot general, an3 that a deficiency in one country is always 
compensated by a plentiful supply in others. But this 
seem^ to be ouite an unfounded supposition. In the evidence 
brouia^ht before the Committee of the House of Commons 
in 1814 relating: to the corn laws, one of the corn mer- 
chants being asked whether it frequently happened that 
crops in the countries bordering upon the Baltic failed, 
when they failed here, replied, "When crops are unfavo- 
" rable in one part of Europfi, it generally happens that 
*' they are more or less so in another."* If any persoa 
will take the trouble to examine the contemporaneous 
prices of corn in the dilFerent countries of Europe for 
some length of time, he will be convinced that the answer 
here given is perfectly just. In the last hundred and fifty 
years, above twenty will be found in which the rise of 
prices is common to France and England, although there 
was seldom much intercourse between them in the trade 
of corn : and Spain and the Baltic nations, as far as their 
prices have been collected, appear frequently to have 
shared in the same-general deficiency. Even within the last 
five years, two ha V occurred, the years 1811-12, and 
1816-17, in which, with extrao dinary high prices in this 
country, the imports have been comparatively inconside- 
rable ; which can only have arisen from those scarcities 
having been areneral over the greatest part of Europe. 

Under these circumstances let us suppose that two mil- 
lion quarters of foreign grain were the average quantity an- 
Buallv wanted m this country, and suppose, at the same 
time, that a million quarters were deficient from a bad -^ea- 

*Jleport, p. ^3, 



Chap. XI. POPULATION. Hi 



Bounties upon Exportatiou. 



son ; the whole deficiency to be supplied would then be 
three millions. 

If the scarcity were .^reneral in Europe, it may (airly 
be concluded, that some states would prohibit the export 
of their corn entirely, and others lax it very highly ; and 
if we could obtain a million or fifteen hundred thousand 
quarters, it is ])robably as much as we could reasonably 
expect. We should then, however, be two millions or 
fifteen hundred thousand quarters deficient. On the other 
hand, if we had habitually grown our own consumption, 
and were deficient a million of quarters from a bad sea- 
son, it is scarcely probable that, notwithstanding a gene- 
ral scarcity, we should not be able to obtain three or four 
hundred thousand quarters in consequence of our advanc- 
ed prices ; particularly if the usual prices of our corn 
and labour were higher than in the rest of Europe. And 
in this case the sum of our whole deficiency would only 
be six or seven hundred thousand quarters, instead of 
fifteen hundred thousand or two millions of quarters. If 
the present year (1816-17) had found us in a state in 
which our growth of corn had been habitually far short 
of our consumption, the distresses of the country would 
have been dreadfully aggravated. 

To provide against accidents of this kind, and to se- 
cure a more abundant and, at the same time, a more steady 
supply of grain, a system of corn-laws has been recom- 
mended the object of which is to discourage by duties 
or prohibitions the importation of foreign corn, and 
encourage by bounties the exportpition of corn of home 
growth. • 



lU ESSAY ON Book III 

Of Corn-Lau's, and 



A system of this kind was completed in our own coun- 
try in 1688,* the policy of which has been treated of at 
pome length by Adam Smith. 

In whatever way the general question may be finally 
decided, it must be allowed by all those who acknow- 
ledge the efficacy of the great principle of supply and 
demand that the line of argument taken by thp author 
of the JVealth o/JYations agaijist the system is essentially 
erroneous. 

He first states that, whatever extension of the foreign 
market can be occasioned by the bounty, must in every 
particalap year be altogether at tlie expense of the home 
market, as every bushel of corn which is exported by 
means of the bounty, and which would not have been ex- 
ported without the bounty, would have remained in the 
home market to increase the consumption, and to lower 
the price of that commodity .f 

In this observation he evidently misapplies the term 
market. Because, by selling a commodity lower, it is easy 
to get rid of a greater quantity of it, in any particular mar- 
ket, than would have gone off otherwise, it cannot justly 
be said that by this process such a market is proportional 
ly extended. Though the removal of the two taxes men- 
tioned by Adam Smith as paid on account of the bounty 
lyould certainly increase the power of the lower classes 
to purchase, yet in each particular year the consumption 



*Thona;l] the object here stated may not have been the specific object 
of the law of 1688, it is certainly the object for which the system h^ 
)jeea sub|equeotly recommended. 

tYoi- ij. b. ♦v. c. /J. 



Chap. XI. POPULATION. 11$ 



Bounties upon Exportation. 



must ultimately be limited by tbe population, and the in 
cieayo of consumption Irom the. lenjoval of these taxes 
would hy no means be sulficient to g'we tlie same en- 
coura'^emeiit to cultivation as the addition of the foreign 
demand. If the price of British corn in the home market 
rise in consequence of the bounty, hcfore the price of 
})roduciion is increased (and an immcdiale rise is dls- 
ti'.icily acknowledged by Adam Smith,) it is an unanswer- 
able proof that the etlectual demand for British corn is 
extended by it ; and that the diminution of demand at 
home, whatever it may be, is more than counterbalanced 
by the extension of demand abroad. 

Adam Smith goes on to say that the two taxes paid by 
the people on account of the bount}-, namely, the one to 
the government to pay this bounty, and the other paid in 
the advanced price of the commodity^ must either reduce 
the subsistence of the labouring poor, or occasion an 
augmentation in their pecuniary wages proportioned to 
that in the pecufriary price of their suhsistence. So far 
as it operates in the one way it must reduce the ability of 
the labouring poor to educate and bring up their chil- 
dren, and must so far tend to restrain the population of 
the country. So far as it operates in the other, it must 
reduce the ability of the employers of the poor to em- 
ploy so great a number as they otherwise might do, and 
must so far tend to restrain the industry of the country. 

It will be readily allowed that the tax occasioned b}- tlie 
bounty will have the one or the other of tlie elTects here 
contemplated; but it cannot be allowed that it will have 
both. Y^it it is observ/idj that tliough the tax, whicli that 



1J4 ESSAY ON ISookm 



Of Corn-Laws, and 



institution imposes upon the whole body of the people, be 
very burdensome to those who pay it, it is of very little 
advantage to those who receive it. This is surely a contra 
diction. If the price of labour rise in proportion to the 
price of wheat, as is subsequently asserted, how is the 
labourer rendered less competent to suppcfft a family ? If 
the price of labour do not rise in proportion to the price- 
of wheat, how is it possible to maintain that the landlords 
and farmers are not able to employ more laboungrs on 
their land ? Yet in this contradiction the author of the 
Wealth of JYations has had respectable followers ; and 
some of those who have agreed with him in his opinion 
that corn regulates the prices of labour, and of all other 
commodities, still insist on the injury done to the la- 
bouring classes of society by a rise in the price of corn, 
and the benefit they would derive from a fall. 

The main argument however which Adam Smith ad- 
duces against the bounty is, that as the money price of 
corn regulates that of all other home-made commodities, 
the advantage to the proprietor from the increase of mo- 
ney price is merely apparent, and not real ; since what 
he gains in his sales he must lose in his purchases.. 

This position, though true to a certain extent, is by no 
means true to the extent of preventing the movement of 
capital to or from the land, which is the precise point in 
question. The money price of corn in a particular coun- 
try is undoubtedly by far the most powerful ingredient in 
regulating the price of labour, and of all other commo-^ 
dities ; but it is not enough for Adam Smiths position, 
that it should be the most powerful ingredient ; it must be 



Cfutp. Xt POPULATION. 1 1 5 



Bounties upon Exporlation. 



shewn that other causes remaining the same, the price of 
every article will rise and fall exactly in proportion to 
the price of corn, and this is very far from being: the case. 
Adam Smith himself excepts all foreign commodities ; but 
when we reflect upon the vast amount of our imports, 
and the quantity of foreign articles used in our manufac- 
tures, this exception alone is of the greatest importance. 
Wool and raw hides, two most important materials of 
home growth, do not according to Adam Smith's own 
reasonings, (Book I c. xi, p. 363, et. seq ) depend much 
upon the price of corn and the rent of land ; and the price 
of flax, tallow and leather, are of course greatly influenc- 
^ by the quantity we import. But woollen cloths, cotton 
and linen goods, leather, soap, candles, tea, sugar &c., 
which are comprehended in the above named articles, 
form almost the whole of the clothing and luxuries of the 
industrious classes of society. 

It should be further observed that in all countWes, the 
industry of which is greatly assisted by fixed capital, 
the part of the price of the wrought commodity which 
pays the profits of such capital will not necessarily rise 
in consequence of an advance in the price of corn, ex- 
cept as it requires gradual renovation; and the advantage 
derived from machinery which has been constructed be- 
fore the advance in the price of labour will naturally last 
for some years 

In the case also of great and numerous taxes on con 
sumption, a rise or fall in the price of corn, though i1 
would increase or decrease that part of the wages of la- 
bour which resolves itself into food, evidently would nof 



116 ESSAY ON ■ Book. J 11. 

Of Corn-Laws j and 

increase or decrease that part whicli is destined for pay- 
ment of taxes. 

It cannot then be admitted as a general position that the 
money price of corn in any country is a just measure of 
the real value of silver in that country. But all these con- 
siderations, though ofgTcat weight to the owners of land, 
will not influence the farmers beyond the present leases. 
At the expiration of a lease, any particulcir advantage 
whicli a farmer had received from a favourable proportion 
between the price of corn and of labour would lie taken 
from him, and any disadvantage from an unfavourable pro- 
portion be made up to him. The sole cause which would 
determine the proportion 6f capital employed in agricul- 
ture, would be the extent of the effectual demand, for 
corn; and if the bounty had reall)^ enlarged this demand, 
which it certainly would have done, it is impossible to 
suppose that more capital would not be employed upon 
the land. 

When Adam Smith says that the nature of things has 
stamped upon corn a real value, which cannot be altered 
by merely altering the money price, and that no bounty 
upon exportation, no monopoly of the home market, can 
raise that value, nor the freest competition lower it, it is 
obvious that he changes the question from the profits of 
the growers of corn, or of the proprietors of the land, 
to the physical and absolute value of corn itself. I cer- 
tainly do not mean to say that the bounty alters the phy- 
sical value of corn, and makes a bushel of it support 
equally well a greater number of labourers than "t did 
before ; but I certainly do mean to say, that the bounty 



Chap. XI POPULATION. 117 

Bounties upon Exportation. 

to the British cultivator does, in the actual state of things, 
really increase the denoand for British corn, and thus en- 
courage him to sow more than he otherwise would do, 
and enables him in consequence to employ more bushels 
of corn in the maintenance of a greater number of la- 
bourers. 

If Adam Smith's theory were true, and the real price 
of corn were unchangeable, or not capable of experien- 
cing a relative increase or decrease of value compared 
with labour and other commodities, agrijjulture would be 
indeed in an unfortunate situation. It would be at once 
excluded from Jhe operation of that principle so beauti- 
fully explained in^'the Wealth of J\'ations^ by which capi- 
tal flows from one employment to another, according to 
the various aud necessarily fluctuating wants of society. 
But surely we cannot doubt that the real price of corn 
varies, though it may not vary so much as the real price 
of other commodities ; and that there are periods when 
all wrought commodities are cheaper, and periods when 
they are dearer, in proportion to the price of corn ; and in 
the one case capital flows from manufactures to agricul- 
ture, and in the other from agriculture to manufactures. 
To overlook these periods, or consider them of slight 
importance, is not allowable ; because in every branch of 
trade these periods form the grand encouragement to an 
increase of supply. " Undoubtedly the profits of trade in 
any particular branch of industry can never long remain 
higher than in others ; but how are they lowered except 
by the influx of capital occasioned by these high profits ? 
It never can be a national object permanently to increase 



118 i^SSAY ON Book. lit 



Of Corn-Laws, and 



the profits of any particular set of dealers. The national 
object is the increase of supply ; but this object cannot 
be attained except by previously increasing the profits of 
these dealers, and thus determining a greater quantity of 
capital to this particular employment. The ship-owners 
and sailors of Great Britain do not make greater profits 
now than they did before the Navigation Act; but the ob- 
ject of the nation was not to increase the profits of ship- 
owners and sailors, but the quantity of shipping and sea- 
men ; and this could not be done but by a law, whiclj, by 
increasing tbe demand for them, raised the profits of the 
capital before employed in this way, and determined a 
greater quantity to flow into the same channel. The ob- 
ject of a nation in the establishment of a bounty is, not 
to increase the profits of the farmers or the rents of the 
landlords, but to determine a greater quantity of the na- 
tional capital to the land, and consequently to increase 
supply; and though, in the case of an advance in the 
price of corn from an increased demand, the rise of wa- 
ges, the rise of rents and the fall of silver tend, in some 
degree, to obscure our view of the subject; yet we can- 
not refuse to acknowledge that the real price of corn va- 
ries during periods suflSciently long to affect the determi- 
nation of capital, or we shall be reduced to the dilemma 
of owning that no possible degree of demand can encou- 
tage the growth of corn. 

It must be allowed then that the peculiar argument re- 
lating to the nature of corn brought forward by Adam 
Smith upon this occasion cannot be maintained ; and that 
3 bounty upon the exportation of corn must enlarge the 



Chap. XI. POPm.ATION. * 11^ 



Bounties upon Exportation. 



demand for it, and encourage its production in the same 
manner, if not in the same degree, as a bounty upon the 
exportation of any other commodity. 

But it has been urged fuithcr that this increased produc- 
tion of corn mu-;t necessarily occasion permasient cheap- 
ness; and a period of considerable lengtb, during the (list 
61 years of the last century, while a bounty was in full 
operation in this country , has been advanced as a proof of 
it. In this conclusion, however, it may be reasonably 
suspected that an effect, in its nature temporary, though 
it may be of some duration, has been mistaken for one 
which is necessarily permanent. 

According to the theory ot demand and supply, the 
bounty might be expected to operate in the following 
manner: 

It is frequently stated in the Wealth of JVatiotis that a 
great demand is followed by a great supply ; a great 
scarcity by a great plenty, an unusual dearnessby an un- 
usual cheapness. A great and indefinite demand is indeed 
generally found to produce a supply more than propor- 
tioned to it. This supply as naturally occasions unusual 
cheapness; but this cheapness, when it comes, must in 
its turn check the production of the commodity ; and this 
check, upon the same principle, is apt to continue longer 
than necessary, and again to occasion a return to high 
prices. 

This appears to be the manner in which a bounty upon 
the exportation of corn, if granted under circumstances 
favorable to its efficiency, might be expecterl to operate, 
and this seems to have been the manner in which it really 



120 ESSAY ON Book. III. 

Of Corn -Laws, and 

did operate in the only instance where it has been fairly 
tried. 

Without meaning to deny the concurrence of other 
causes, or attempting to estimate the relative efficiency of 
the bounty, it is impossible not to acknowledge that when 
the growing price of corn was, according to Adam Smith, 
only 28 shillings a quarter, and the corn markets of Eng- 
land were as low as those of the continent, a premium of 
five shillings a quarter upon exportation must have occa- 
sioned an increase of real price, and given encourage- 
ment to the cultivation of grain. But the changes pro- 
duced in the direction of capital to or from the land will 
always be slow. Those who have been m the habit of 
employing their stock in mercantile concerns do not rea- 
dily turn it into the channel of agriculture ; and it is a 
still more difficult and slower operation to withdraw cap- 
ital from the soil, to employ it in commerce. For the 
first 25 years after the establishment of the bounty in this 
country the price of corn rose 2 or 3 shillings in the 
quarter; but owiiig probably to the wars of Wil- 
liam and Anne, to bad seasons, and a scarcity of mo- 
ney, capital seems to have accumulated slowly on the land, 
and no great surplus growth was effected. It was not till 
after the peace of Utrecht that the capital of the country 
began in a marked manner to increase ; and it is impossi- 
ble that the bounty should not gradually have directed a 
larger portion of this accumulation to the land than would 
otherwise have gone to it, A surplus growth, and a fall 
of price for thirty or forty years, followed. 

It will be said that this period of low prices was too 



Chap. XL POPULATION. 121 

Bounties upon Exportation. 

long to be occasioned by a bounty, even according to the 
theory just laid down. This is perhaps true, and in all 
probability the period would have been shorter if the 
bounty alone had operated ; but in this case other causes 
powerfully combined with it. 

The fall in the price of British corn was accowipanied 
by a fall of prices on the continent. Whatever were the 
general causes which produced this effect in foreign 
countries, it is probable that they were not wholly inope- 
rative in England. At all events nothing could be so 
powerfully calculated to produce cheapness, and to occa- 
sion a slow return to high prices, as a considerable sur- 
plus growth, w^hich was unwillingly received, and only 
at low prices, by other nations. When such a surplus 
growth had been obtained, some time would necessarily 
be required to destroy it by cheapness, particularly as 
the moral stimulus of the bounty would probably continue 
to act long after the fall of prices had commenced. If to 
these causes we add that a marked fall in the rate of in- 
terest, about the same time, evinced an abundance of cap- 
ital, and a consequent difficulty pf finding a profitable em- 
ployment for it ; and consider further the natural obsta- 
cles to the moving of capital from the land ; we shall see 
sufficient reason why even a long period might elapse 
without any essential alteration in the comparative abun- 
dance and cheapness of corn. 

Adam Smith attributes this cheapness to a rise in tlie 
V alue of silver. The fall in the price of corn which took 
place in France and some other countries about the same 
time might give some countenance to the conjecture. But 



■ I 
m ESSAY ON Book III 

Of Corn-Laws and 

the accounts we have lately had of the produce of the 
mines during the period in question does not sufficiently 
support it •, and it is much more probable that it arose 
from the comparative state of peace in which Europe v\as 
placed after the termination of the wars of Louis XIV., 
which facilitated the accumulation of capital on the land 
and encouraged agricultural improvements. 

With regard to this country, indeed, it is observed by 
Adam Smith himself, that labour and other articles were 
rising; a fact very unfavourable to the supposition of an 
increased value of the precious metals. JS'ot only the 
money price of corn fell, but its value relative to other 
articles was lowered, and this fall of relative value, to- 
gether with great exportations, clearly pointed to a rela- 
tive abundance of corn, in whatever way it might be oc- 
casioned, as the main cause of the facts observed rather 
than a scarcity of silver. This great fall in the Bri- 
tish corn market, particularly during the ten years from 
1740 to 1750 accompanied by a great fall in the conti- 
nental markets, owing in some degree perhaps to the 
great exportation of British corn, especially during the 
years 1748, 1749 and 1750, must necessarily have given 
some check to its cultivation, while the increase of the 
real price of labour must at the same time have given a 
stimulus to the increase of population. The united op- 
eration of these two causes is exactly calculated first to 
diminish and ultimately to destroy a surplus of corn ; and 
as, after 1764, the wealth and manufacturing popula- 
tion of Great Britain increased more'rapidly than those 
of her neighbours, the returning stimulus to agriculture 



Chap. XL POPULATION. m 



Bounties upon Exportation. 



consideral)le as it was, arising almost exclusively from q 
home demanded, was incapable oi producinj^ a surplus; 
and not beinij confmcd as before to British cultivation, 
owing to the alteration in the corn-laws, was inadequate 
even to effect an independent supply. Had the old corn- 
laws remained in full force, we should still probably have 
lost our surplus growth, owing to the causes above men- 
tioned, although from their restrictive clauses we should 
certainly have been nearer the gror^ih of an independent 
supply immediately previous to the scarcity of 1800. 

It IS not therefore necessary, in order to object to the 
bounty, to say with Adam Smith that the fail in the price 
of corn which took place during the first half of the last 
century must have happened in spite of the bounty, 
and could not possibly have happened in consequence of 
It. We may allow; on the contrary, what I think we 
ought to allow, according to all general principles, that 
the bounty, when granted under favourable circumstan- 
ces, is really calculated, after going tlirough a period of 
dearness, to produce the surplus and the cheapness 
which it advocates promise;* but according to the same 
general principles we must allow that this surplus and 
cheapness, from their operating at once as a check to 
produce and an encouragement to population, cannot be 
for any great length of time maintained. 



*As far as the bounty miifht tend to force the cultivation of poorer 
land, so far no doubt it would have a tendency to raise the price of corn 
but we know from experience that the rise of price naturally occasion 
ed in this way is continually counteracted by iinprovenieiits in agri- 
Culture. As a matter of fact it must be allowed, that, during the peri- 
od of the last century when co^rn was laUiny, irtoreland nutst h*\c 
^een taken into cultivation. 



ll'4 ESSAY ON Book III. 

Of Corn-Laws and 

The objection then to a bounty on corn; independently 
of the objections to bounties in general, is, that when im- 
posed under the most favourable circumstances it cannot 
produce permanent cheapness : and if it be imposed un- 
der unfavourable circumstances ; that is, if an attempt be 
made to force exportation by an adequate bounty at a time 
when the country does not fully grow its own consump- 
tion ; it is obvious not only that the tax necessary for the 
purpose must be a very heavy one, but that the effect 
will be absolutely prejudicial to the population, and the 
surplus growth will be purchased by a sacrifice very far 
beyond its worth. 

But notwithstanding the strong objections to bounties 
on general grounds, and their inapplicability in cases 
which are not unfrequent, it must be acknowledged that 
while they are operative ; that is, while they produce an 
exportation which would not otherwise have taken place, 
they unquestionably encourage an increased growth of 
corn in the countries in which they are established, or 
maintain it at a point to which it would not otherwise 
have attained. 

Under peculiar and favourable circumstances a country 
might maintain a considerable surplus growth for a great 
length of time with, an inconsiderable increase of the 
growing price of corn ; and perhaps little or no increase 
of the average price, including years oi scarcity.* It 



*The average price is different from the growing price. Years of 
scarcity, which must occasionally occur, essentially affect the average 
price ; and the growth of a surplus quantity of corn, which tends to 



Chap. XL POPULATION 135 



Bounties upon Exportation. 



from any period during the last century, when an aver- 
age excess of growth for exportation had' been obtained 
by tJie stimulus of a bounty, the foreign demand for our 
corn had increased at the same rate as the domestic de- 
mand, our surplus growth might have become permanent. 
After the bounty had ceased to stimulate to fresh exer- 
tions, its influence would by no means be lost. For some 
years it would have given the British grower an absolute, 
advantage over the foreign grower, This advantage 
would of course gradually diminish ; because it is the 
nature of all effectual demand to he ultimately supplied, 
and oblige the producers to sell at the lowest price they 
can afford consistently with the general rates of profits. 
But, after having experienced a period of decided en- 
couragement, the British -grower would find himself in 
the habit of supplying a larger market than his own upon 
equal terms with his competitors. And if the foreign 
and British markets continued to extend themselves equal- 
ly, he would continue to proportion his supplies to both ; 
because, unless a particular increase of demand were to 
take place at home, he could never withdraw his foreign 
supply without lowering the price of his whole crop; and 
the nation would thus be in possession of a constant store 
for years of scarcity. 

But even supposing that by a bounty, combined with 
the most favourable state of prices in other countries, a 
particular state could maintain permanently an average 



prevent scarcity, will tend to lower this average, and make it 
P roach nearer to the growing price. 

R 



126 ESSAY ON POPULATION. Book. Ill 



Of Corn-Laws, 



excess of growth for exportation, it must not of course be 
imagined that its population would not still be checked by. 
the difficulty of procuring subsistence. It would indeed be 
less exposed to the particular pressure arising from years 
of scarcity ; but in other respects it would be subject to 
the same checks as those already described in the preced- 
ing chapters ; and whether there was a habitual exporta- 
tion or not, the population would be regulated by the real 
wages of labour, and would come to a stand when the 
necessaries which these wages could command were not 
sufficient, under the actual habits of the people, to eia= 
courage an increase of numbers. 



CHAPTER XM. 



'o 



Of Corn-Laws. Restrictions upon Importatien. 



Tlie laws which prohibit the importation of toreigu 
grain, though. by no means unobjectionable, are not open 
to the same objections as bounties, and must be allou ed 
to be adequate to the object they have in view — the main- 
tenance of an independent supply. A country with land- 
ed lesources, which determines never to import corn but 
when the price indicates an approach towards a scarcity, 
will necessarily, in average years, supply its own wants. 
Though we may reasonably, therefore, object to restric- 
tions upon the importation of foreign corn, on the grounds 
of their tending to prevent the most profitable employ- 
ment of the national capital and industry, to check popu- 
lation, and to discourage the expoit of our manufactures; 
yet we cannot deny their tendency to encourage the 
growth of corn at home and to procure and maintain an 
independent supply, A bounty, it has appeared, suffi- 
cient to make it answer its purpose in forcing a surplus 
growth, would, in many cases, require so very heavy a 
direct tax, and would bear so large a proportion to the 
whole price of the corn, as to make it in some countries 
next to impracticable. Restrictions upon importation im- 
pose no direct tax upon the people, On the contrary, 



128 ESSAY ON Book. lit. 

Of Corn-Laws. 

they might be made, if it were thought adviseable, sour- 
ces of revenue to the government, and they can always 
without difficulty, be put in execution, and be made infal- 
libly to answer their express purpose of securing, in ave- 
rage years, a sufficient growth of corn for the actual pop- 
ulation. 

We have considered, in the preceding chapters, the 
peculiar disadvantages which attend a system either al- 
most exclusively agricultural or exclusively commercial, 
and the peculiar advantages which attend, a system in 
which they are united, and flourish together. It has fur- 
ther appeared that in a country with great landed resour- 
ces, the commercial population may, from particular 
causes, so far predominate as to subject it to some of the 
evils which belong to a state purely commercial and man- 
ufacturing, and to a degree of fluctuation in the price of 
corn greater than is found to take place in such a state. 
It is obviously possible, by restrictions upon the impor- 
tation of foreign corn to maintain a balance between the 
agricultural and commercial classes. The question is not 
a question of the efficiency or inefficiency of the measure 
proposed, but of ite policy or impolicy. The object can 
certainly be accomplished, but it may be purchased too 
dear; and to those who do not at once reject all inquiries 
on points of this kind, as impeaching a principle which 
they hold sacred, the question, whether a balance between 
the agricultural and commercial classes of society, which 
would not take place naturally, ought, under certain cir- 
cumstances, tp be maintained artificially, must appear to 



Clmp.Xn. POPULATION. 120 



Restrictions upon Importation. 



be the most important practical question in the whole 
compass of poiltical economy. 

One of the objections to the admission ef the doctrine 
that restrictions upon importation are advantageous is, 
that it cannot possibly be laid down as a general rule that 
every state ought to raise its own corn. There are some 
states so circumstanced that the rule is clearly and ob- 
viously inapplicable to them. 

In the first place there are many states which have 
made some figure in history, the territories of which 
have been perfectly inconsiderable compared with their 
main town or towns, and utterly incompetent to supply 
the actual population with ibod. In such communities, 
what is called the principal internal trade of a large state, 
the trade which is carried on between the towns and the 
country, must necessarily be a foreign trade, and the im- 
portation of foreign corn is absolutely necessary to their 
existence. They may be said to be born without the ad- 
vantage of land, and, to whatever risks and disadvanta- 
ges a system merely commercial and manufacturing may 
be exposed, they have no power of choosing any other. 
All that they can do is to make the most of their own 
situation, compared with the situation of their neighbors, 
and to endeavour by superior industry, skill and capital, 
to make up for so important a deficiency. In these ef- 
forts some states of which we have accounts have been 
wonderfullyfsuccessful ; but the reverses to which they 
have been subject have been almost as conspicuous as the 
degree of their prosperity compared with the scantiness 
of their natural resources. 



130 ESSAY ON Book III 

Of Corn-Laws. 

Secondly, restrictions upon the importation of foreign 
corn are evidently not applicable to a country which, 
from its soil and climate, is subject to very great and sud- 
den variations in its home supplies, from the variations of 
the seasons. A country so circumstanced will unques- 
tionably increase its chance of a steady supply of grain 
by opening as many markets for importation and expor- 
tation as possible, and this will probably be true, even 
though other countries occasionally prohibit or tax the 
exports of their grain. The peculiar evil to which such 
a country is subject can only be mitigated by encourag- 
ing the freest possible foreign trade in corn. 

Thirdly, restrictions upon importation are not applica- 
ble to a country which has a very barren territory, al- 
though it may be of some extent. An attempt fully to 
cultivate and improve such a territory by forcibly direct- 
ing capital to it would probably, under any circumstan- 
ces, fail ; and the actual produce obtained in this way 
might be purchased by sacrifices which the capital and 
industry of the nation could not possibly continue to sup- 
port. Whatever advantages those countries may enjoy, 
which possess the means of supporting a considerable 
population from their own soil, such advantages are not 
within the reach of a state so circumstanced. It must 
either consent to be a poor and inconsiderable communi- 
ty, or it must place its chief dependence on other resour- 
ces than those of land. It resembles in many respects 
those states which have a very small territory ; and its 
policy, with regard to the importation of cornj must of 
course be nearly the same. 



Chap. XII POPULATION. 131 



Restrictions upon Importation. 



In all these cases there can be no doubt of the impoli- 
cy of attempting to maintain a balance between the agri- 
cultural and commercial classes of society which would 
not take place naturally. 

Under other and opposite circumstances, however, 
this impolicy is by no means so clear. 

If a nation possesses a large territory consisting of land 
of an average quality, it may without difficulty supj)ort 
from its own soil, a population fully sufficient to maintain 
its rank in wealth and powf '^[ among the countries with 
which it has relations,' \ ither of commerce or of war. 
Territories of a certain extent must ultimately in the 
main, support their own population. As each exporting 
country approaches towards that complement of wealth 
and population to which it is naturally tending, it will 
gradually withdraw the corn which for a time it had spar- 
ed to its more manufacturing and commercial neighbors, 
and leave them to subsist on their own resources. The 
peculiar products of each soil and climate are objects of 
foreign trade, which can never, under any circumstances, 
fail. But food is not a peculiar product; and the coun- 
try which produces it in the greatest abundance may, ac- 
cording to the laws which govern the progress of popu- 
lation, have nothing to spare for others. An extensive 
foreign trade in corn beyond what arises from the varia- 
bleness of the seasons in different countries is rather a 
temporary and incidental trade, depending chiefly upon, 
the different stages of improvement which different coun^ " 
tnes may have reached, and on other accidental circum- 
stances, than a trade whifth is in its nature pern^anent, ; 



]32 ESSAY ON Book HI 

Of Corn-Laws. 

and the stimulus to which will remain in the progress of 
society unabated. In the wildness of speculation it has 
been suggested (of course more in jest than in earnest) 
that Europe ought to grow its corn in America, and de- 
vote itself solely to manufactures and commerce, as the 
best sort of division of the labour of the globe. But 
even on the extravagant supposition that the natural course 
of things might lead to such a division of labour for a 
time, and that by such means Europe could raise a popu- 
lation greater than its land's-* could possibly support, the 
consequences ought justly to beptlieaded. It is an unques- 
tionable truth that it must answer to every territorial 
state in its natural progress of wealth, to manufacture for 
itself, unless the countries from Avhich it had purchased 
its manufactures possess some advantages peculiar to 
them besides capital and skill. But when upon this prin- 
ciple America began to withdraw its corn from Europe 
and the agricultural exertions of Europe were in- 
adequate to make up for the deficiency, it would 
certainly be felt that the temporary advantages of a 
greater degree of wealth and population (supposing them 
to have been really attained) had been very dearly pur- 
chased by a long period of retrograde movement and 
misery. 

If then a country be of such a size that it may fairly 
be expected finally to supply its own population with 
food ; if the population which it can thus support from 
its own resources in land be such as to enable it to main- 
tain its rank and power among other nations ; and further 
if there be reason to fear not only the final withdrawing 
of foreign corn used for a certain time, which might be 



Chap. XII. POPULATION, 133 

Restriction of Importation. 

a distant event, but the immediate effects that attend a 
great predominance of a manufacturing population, such 
as increased unhealthiness, increased turbulence, increas- 
ed fluctuations in the price of corn, and increased variable- 
ness in the wages of labour ; it may not appear impolitic 
artificially to maintain a more equal balance between the 
agricultural and commercial classes by restricting the im- 
portation of foreign corn, and making agriculture keep 
pace with manufactures. 

Thirdly, if a country be possessed of such a soil and 
climate, that the variations in its annual growth of corn are 
less than in most other countries, this may be an addition- 
al reason Tor admitting the policy of restricting the im- 
portation of foreign corn. Countries are very different 
in the degree of variableness to which their annual sup- 
plies are subject; and though it is unquestionably true that 
if all were nearly equal in this respect, and tlie trade in 
corn really free, the steadiness of price in a particular state 
would increase with an increase in the number of the na- 
tions connected with it by the commerce of grain ; yet it 
by no means follows that the same conclusion will hold 
good when the premises are essentially different; that is 
when some of the countries taken into the circle of trade 
are subject to very great comparative variations in their 
supplies of grain, and when this defect is aggravated by 
the acknowledged want of real freedom in the foreign 
trade of corn. i 

Suppose, for instance, that the extreme variations above 
and below the average quantity of corn grown, were in 
England | and in France | a free intercource between the 



134 ESSAY ON Book. Ill 

Of Cora-Laws, 

two countries would probably increase the variableness 
of the English markets And if, in addition to England 
and France, such a country as Bengal could be brought 
near, and admitted into the circle — a country in which 
according to Sir George Colebrook, rice is sometimes 
sold four times as cheap in one year as in the suc- 
ceeding without famine or scarcity ;* and where, not- 
withstanding the frequency of abundant harvests, de- 
ficiencies sometimes occur of such extent as necessarily 
to destroy a considerable portion of the population ; it is 
quite certain that the supplies both of England and France 
would become very much more variable than before the 
accession. 

In point of fact, there is reason to believe that the 
British isles, owing to the nature of their soil and climate 
are peculiarly free from great variations in their annual 
produce of grain. If we compare the prices of corn in 
England and France from the period of the commence- 
ment of the Eaton tables to the beginning of the revolu - 
tionary war, we shall find that m England the highest 
price of the quarter of wheat of 8 bushels during the 
whole of that time was SI. 15s 6rf|, (in 1648,) and the 
lowest price \l. 2s. \d. (in 1743,) while in France the 
highest price of the septier was 62 francs 78 centimes 
( in 1662, ) and the lowest price Sfrancs 89 centimes 
(in 171 8)* In the one case the difference is a little above 



♦Husbandry of Bengal, p. 108. Note. He observes in the text of 
the same page that the price of corn fluctuates much more than in 
Europe. 

*Garmer'a Edition of the Wealth of Nations vol. ii. Table, p. 18S. 



Chap. XII. POPULATION. 135 

Restriction of Importation. 

■-. - ■■ - ■ ■ — ■ ■ ■ ■ •■ ■ ' ■■,■....- > 

3| times, and in the other very nearly 7 times. In the Ei> 
glish tables, during periods of ten or twelve years, only 
two instances occur of a variation amounting to as much 
as 3 times; in the French tables, during periods of the 
same length, one instance occurs of a variation of above 
6 times, and three instances besides of a variation of 4 
times or above. 

These variations may perliaps, have been aggravated 
by a want of freedom in the internal trade of corn, but 
they are strongly confirmed by the calculations of Tur- 
got, which relate solely to variations of produce, with- 
out reference to any difficulties or obstructions in its 
free transport from one part of the country to another. 

On land of an average quality he estimates the produce 
at seven septiers the arpent in years of great abundance 
and three septiers the arpent in year of great scarcity ; 
while the medium produce he values at five septiers the 
arpent* These calculations he conceives are not far 
removed from the truth; and proceeding on these grounds 
he observes that, in a very abundant year, the produce 
will be five months above its ordinary consumption, and 
in a very scarce year as much below. These variations 
are, I should think, much greater than those which take 
place in this country, at least if we may judge from pri- 
ces, particularly as in a given degree of scarcity in the 
two countries their is little doubt that from the superior 
riches of England, and the extensive parish relief which it 
affords to the poorer classes in times of dearth, its prices 



^CEuVres de Turgof, toia, vi. p. 143. Edit. JS04- 



13fr ESSAY ON Book HI. 

Of Corn-Laws 

would rise more above the usual average than those of 
France. 

If we look to the prices of wheat in Spain during the 
same period, we shall find, in like manner, much greater 
variations than in England. In a table of the prices of 
the fanega of wheat in the market of Seville from 
1675 to 1764 inclusive, published in the Appendix to the 
Bullion Report,* the highest price is 48 reals vellon (in 
1677,) and the lowest price 7 reals vellon (in 1720,) a 
difterence of nearly seven times; and in periods often or 
twelve years the difference is in two or three instances 
as much as four times. In another table, from 1788 to 
1792 inclusive, relating to the towns of Old Castille, the 
highest price in 1790 was 109 reals vellon the fanega, 
and in 1792 the lowest price was only 16 reals vellon the 
fanega. In the market of Medina del Rio Seco, a town 
of the kingdom of Leon, surrounded by a very fine corn 
country, the price of the load of four fanegas of wheat 
was, in May, 1800, 100 reals vellon, and in May, 1804 
600 reals vellon, and these were both what were called 
low prices^ as compared with the highest prices of the 
year. The difference would be greater if the high pri- 
Cf'> were compared with the low prices. Thus, in 1799, 
the low price of the four fanegas was 88 reals vellon, and 
in 1 804 the high prices of the four fanegas was 640 reals 
vellon, — a difference of above seven times in so short a 
period as six years.f 

In Spain, foreign corn is freely admitted ; yet the vari- 



*Appendix p. 182. 

^Bullion Report. Appendix, p. 185. 



Chap.XlL POPULATION. 137 

Restriction upon Importation. 

ation of price, in the towns of Andalusia, a province ad- 
joining the sea, and penetrated by the river Guadalquiver 
though not so great as those just mentioned, seems to shew 
that the coasts of the Mediterranean by no means furnish 
very steady supplies. It is known, indeed, that Spain is 
the principal competitor of England in the purchase of 
grain in the Baltic; and as it is quite certain that what 
may be called the growing or usual price of corn in 
Spain is much lower than in England, it follows, that the 
difference between the pricesof plentiful and scarce years 
must be very considerable 

I have not the means of ascertaining the variations in 
the supplies and prices of the northern nations. They 
are, however, occasionally great, as it is well known 
that some of these countries are at times subject to very 
severe scarcities. But the instances already produced 
are sufficient to shew, that a country which is advan- 
tageously circumstanced with regard to the steadiness of 
its home supplies may rather diminish than increase this 
steadiness by uniting its interests with a country less fa- 
vourably circumstanced in this respect; and this steadi- 
ness will unquestionably be still further diminished, if 
the country which is the most variable in its supplies is 
allowed to inundate the other with its crops when they are 
abundant, while it reserves to itself the privilege of retain 
ing them in a period of slight scarcity, w^hen its commer- 
cial neighbour happens to be in the greatest want.* 



* These two circumstances essentially change the premises on which 
the question of a free importation, as applicable to a particulstr state, 
must rest. 



rse ESSAY ON Book lit 

Of Corn-Laws. 

3dlj, if a nation be possessed of a territory, not only 
of a sufficient extent to maintain under its actual cultiva- 
tion a population adequate to a state of the first rank, but 
of sufficient unexhausted fertility to allow of a very great 
increase of population, such a circumstance would of 
course make the measure of restricting the importation 
of foreign corn more aplicable to it, 

A country which, though fertile and populous, had been 
cultivated nearly to the utmost, would have no other means 
of increasing its population than by the admission of foreign 
corn. But the British isles shew at present no symptoms 
whatever of this species of exhaustion. The necessary 
accompaniments of a territory worked to the utmost are 
very low profits and extent, a very slack demand for 
labour, low wages, and a stationary population. Some of 
these symptoms mayiiideed take place without an exhaus- 
ted territory ; but an exhausted territory cannot take 
place without all these symptoms. Instead, however, of 
such symptoms, we have seen in this country, during the 
twenty years previous to 1814, a high rate of profits and 
interest, a very great demand for labour, good wages, 
and an increase of population more rapid, perhaps, than 
during any period of our history. The capitals which 
have been laid out in bringing new land into cultivation, 
or miproving the old must necessarily have yielded good 
returns, or, under the actual rate ot general profits, they 
would not have been so employed ; and although it ig 
strictly true that as capital accumulates upon the land, its 
profits nuist ultimately diminish ; yet owing to the increase 
of agricultaral skill, and other causes noticed in a forirjaw 



Chap. XIL POPULATION. 139 



Restrictions upon Importation. 



chapter, these two effects of progressive cultivation do 
not by any means always keep pace with each other. — 
Though they must finally unite and terminate the career 
of their progress together, they are often, during the 
course of their progress, separated for a considerable 
time, and at a considerable distance. In some countries, 
and some soils, the quantity of capital which can be ah- 
sorbed before any essential diminution of profits necessa^ 
lily takes place is sd great, that its limit is not easily cal- 
culated; and certainly, when wc consider what has actu- 
ally been done in nome districts of England and Scotland, 
and compare it with what remains to be done in other dis- 
tricts, we must allow that no near approach to this limit 
has yet been made. On account of the high money price 
of labour, and of the materials of agricultural capital, 
occasioned partly by direct and indirect taxation, and 
partly, or perhaps chiefly, by the great prosperity of our 
foreign commerce, new lands cannot be brought into cul- 
tivation, nor great improvements made on the old, without a 
liigh money price of grain ; but these lands, when they 
have been so brought into cultivation or improved, have 
by no means turned out unproductive. The quantity and 
value of their produce have borne a full and fair propor- 
tion to the quantity of capital and labour employed upon 
them; and they were cultivated with great advantage 
both to individuals and the state, as long as the same, or 
nearly the same, relations between the value of produce 
and the cost of production, which prompted this cultiva- 
Hon, continued to exist. 

Ixi snch a state (sf the soiL the British empire might iim 



140 ESSAY ON Book. III. 

Of Corn -Laws. 

questionably be able, not only to support from its own a- 
gricultural resources its present population, but double, 
and in time, perhaps, even treble the number ; and con- 
sequently a restriction upon the importation of foreign 
corn, which might be thouglit greatly objectionable in a 
country which had reached nearly the end of its resour- 
ces, might appear in a very diiferent light in a country 
capable of supporting from its own lands a very great 
increase of population. 

But it will be said, that although a country may be al- 
lowed to be capable of maintaining from its own soil not 
only a great, but an increasing population, yet if it be 
ackaowledged that, by opening its ports for the free ad- 
mission of foreign corn, it may be made to support a 
greater and more rapidly increasing population, it is un- 
justifiable to go out of our way to check this tendency, 
and to prevent that degree of wealth and population 
which would naturally take place. 

This is unquestionably a powerful argument: and grant- 
ing fully the premises, (which, however, may admit of 
some doubt,) it cannot be answered upon the principles of 
political economy solely. I should say, however, that if 
it could be clearly ascertained that the addition of wealth 
and population so acquired would subject the society to a 
greater degree of uncertainty in its supplies of corn, 
greater fluctuations in the wages of labour, greater un- 
healthiness and immorality owing to a larger proportion 
of the population being employed in manufactories, and 
a greater chance of long and depressing retrograde move- 
ments occasioned by the natural progress of those cdun- 



Chap.XIL POPULATION. 141 



Restrictions upon Importation. 



tries from which corn had been imported ; I should have 
no hesitation in considering such wealth and population as 
much too dearly purchased. The happiness of a socie- 
ty is, after all, the legitimate end even of its wealth, pow- 
er and population. It is certainly true that with a view 
to the structure of society most favourable to this happi- 
ness, and an adequate stimulus to the production of wealth 
from the soil, a very considerable admixture of commer- 
cial and manufacturing population with the agricultural is 
absolutely necessary ; but there is no argument so fre- 
quently and obviously fallacious as that which infers that 
what is good to a certain extent is good to any extent *, 
and though it will be most readily admitted that in a large 
landed nation, the evils which belong to the manufactur- 
ing and commercial system are much more than counter- 
balanced by its advantages, as long as it is supported by 
agriculture ; yet, in reference to the effect of the excess 
which is not so supported, it may fairly be doubted whe- 
tlier the evils do not decidedly predominate. 

It is observed by Adam Smith, that the "capital which 
is acquired to any country by commerce and marufacture* 
is all a very uncertain and precarious possession, till some 
part of it has been secured and realized in the cultivation 
and improvement of its lands."* 

It is remarked in another place, thSit the monopoly of 
the colony trade, by raising the rate of mercantile profit* 
discourages the improvement of the soil, and retards the 



Tol.ii. b. iil. C.4, p. 137 

T 



143 ESSAY OK Sook III 

• ■* '■ -»■ ...» ■ ■■ , ■ , I , < 

Of Corn-Laws. 

natural increase of that great original source of revenue, 
the rent of land.* 

Now it is certain that, at no period, have the manufac- 
tures, commerce and colony trade of the country heen in 
a state to absorb so much capital as during the twenty 
years end ins: with 1814. From the year 1764 to the 
peace of Amiens, it is generally allowed thatthecom- 
m^-rce and manufactures of the country increased faster 
than its agriculture, and that it became gradually more 
and more dependent on foreign corn for its support. — = 
Since the peace of Amiens the state of its colonial mo- 
nopoly and of its manufactures has been such as to de^ 
mand an unusual quantity of capital ; and if the peculiar 
circumstances of the subsequent war, the high frieghts 
and insurance, and the decrees of Buonaparte, had not 
rendered the importation of foreign corn extremely diffi- 
cult and expensive, we should at this moment, according 
to all general principles, have been in the habit of sup- 
porting a much larger portion of our population upon it, 
than at anv former period of our history. The cultiva- 
tion of the country would be in a very different state 
from what it is at present. Very few or none of those 
grf'at improwments would have taken place which may 
be said to have nurrhased fresh land for the state that no 
fall of price can destroy. And the peace, or accidents 
of diflferent kinds, might have curtailed essentially both 
our colonial and manufacturing advantages, and destroyed 



*VoI. ii. b. iv. c. 8,.p. 495. 



Chap. XII. POPULATION. US 



Restrictions upon Importation. 



or driven away our capital before it had spread itself on 
the soil, and become national property. 

As it is, the practical restrictions thrown in the way of 
importing foreign corn during the war have forced our 
steam engines and our colonial monopoly to cultivate our 
lands; and those very causes which, according to Adam 
Smith, tend to draw capital from agriculture, and would 
certainly have so drawn it, if we could have continued to 
purchase foreign corn at the market prices of France and 
Holland, have been the means of giving such a spur to 
our agriculture, that it has not only kept pace with a very 
rapid increase of commerce and manulactures, but has re- 
covered the distance at which it had for many years been 
left behind, and now marches with them abreast. 

But restrictions upon the importation of foreign corn 
in a country which has great landed resources, not only 
tend to spread every commercial and manufacturing ad- 
vantage possessed, whether permanent or temporary, on 
the soil, and thus in the language of Adam Smith, secure 
and realize it ; but also tend to prevent those great ocil- 
ations in the progress of agriculture and commerce, which 
are seldom unattended with evil. 

It is to be recollected, and it is a point of great impor- 
tance to keep constantly in our minds, that the distress 
which has been experienced among almost all classes of 
society from the sudden fall of prices, except as far as it 
has been aggravated by the state of the currency, has 
been occasioned by natural^ not artificial^ causes. 

There is a tendency to an alternation in the rate of the 
progress of agriculture and manufactures in th^ samemaa' 



144 ESSAY ON Book III 

Of Corn-Laws. 

ner as there is a tendency to an alternation in the rate of 
the progress of food and population. In periods of peace 
and uninterrupted trade, these alternations, though not 
favourable to the happiness 'and quiet of society, may 
take place without producing material evil; but the in- 
tervention of war is always liable to give them a force 
^nd rapidity that must unaviodably produce a convulsion 
in the state of property. 

The war that succeeded to the peace of Amiens found 
us dependent upon foreign countries for a very consider- 
able portion of our supplies of corn ; and we now grow 
our own consumption, notwithstanding an unusual increase 
of population in the interval. This great and sudden 
change in the state of our agriculture could only have been 
effected by very high prices occasioned by an inadequate 
home supply and the great expense and difficulty of im- 
portmg foreign corn. But the rapidity with which this 
change has been effected must necessarily create a glut 
in the market as soon as the home growth of corn became 
fully equal or a little in excess above the home consump- 
tion ; and, aided only by a small foreign importation, must 
inevitably occasion a very soidden fall of prices. If the 
ports had continued open for the free importation of foreign 
corn, there can be little doubt that the price of corn in 
J 81 5 would have been still considerably lower. This low 
price of corn, even if by means of lowered rents our pre- 
sent state of cultivation could be in a great degree pre- 
served, must give such a check to future improvement, 
that if the ports were to continue open, we should cer- 
tainly not grow a sufficieacy at home to keep pace with 



CImp. XL POPULATION 145 



Restrictions upon Importation. 



our ijicreasing population ; and at the end often or twelve 
years we might be found by anew war in the same state 
that we w^ere at the commencement of the present. We 
should then have the same career of high prices to pass 
through, the same excessive stimulus to agriculture* fol- 
lowed by the same sudden and depressing check to it, and 
the same enormous loans borrowed with the price of wheat 
at 90 or 100 shillings a quarter, and the monied incomes 
of the landholders and industrious classes of society near- 
ly in proportion, to be paid when wheat is at 50 or CO 
shillings a quarter, and the incomes of the landlords and 
industrious classes ot society greatly reduced — a state of 
things which cannot take place without an excessive ag- 
gravation of the difficulty of paying taxes, and particu- 
larly that invariable monied amount which pays the in- 
terest of the national debt. 

On the other hand a country which so restricts the im- 
portations of foreign corn as on an average to grow its 
own supplies, and to import merely in periods of scarcity 
is not only certain of spreading every invention in manu- 
factures and every peculiar advantage it may possess 
from its colonies or general commerce on the land, and 
thus of fixing them to the spot and rescuing them from ac- 
cidents ; but is necessarily exempt from those violent and 
distressing convulsions of property which almost unavoida- 



* According to the evidence before the House of Lords (Reports, p. 
49,) the freight and insurance alone on a quarter of corn were greater 
by 48 shillings in ISll than in 1814. Without any artificial interfer- 
ence then it appears that war alone may occasion unovoidably a pr6- 
digious increase of pricf.. 



146 ESSAY ON Booh HI. 



Of Corn-Laws. 



bly arise from the coincidence, of a general war and 
an insufficient home supply of corn. 

If the late war had lound us independent of foreigners 
for our average consumption, not even our paper currency 
(Could have made the prices of our corn approach to th© 
prices which were at one time experienced.* And if we 
had continued, during the course of the contest indepen- 
dent of foreign supplies, except in an occasional scarcity 
it is impossible that the growth of our own consumption, 
or a little above it, should have produced at the end 
of the war so universal a feeling of distress. 

The chief practical objection to which restrictions on 
the importation of corn are exposed is a glut irom an a- 
bundant harvest, which cannot be relieved by exportation 
And in the consideration of that part of the question 
which relates to the fluctuations of prices this objec- 
tion ought to have its full and fair weight. But the 
fluctuation of prices arising from vthis cause has some- 
times been very greatly exaggerated. A glut which 
might essentially distress the farmers of a poor coun- 
try, might be comparatively little felt by the farmers 
of a rich one ; and it is difficult to conceive that a 
nation with an ample capital, and not under the influence 
of a great shock to commercial confidence, as this coun- 
try was in 18J5, would find much difficulty in reserving 
the surplus of ona year to supply the wants of the next or 
some future year. It may fairly indeed be doubted whe- 



•It will be found upon examination, that the prices of our corn led 
the way to the excess and diminution of our paper currency, rathef 
than followed, although the prices of corn could never have been eitl)«F 
so high or so low if this escess and diounution had not taken plac» 



Chap. XII POPULATION. 147 



Restrictions of Importation. 



tber, in such a country as our own, the fall of price aris- 
ing from this cause would be so great as that which would 
be occasioned by the sudden pouring in of the supplies 
from an abundant crop in Europe, particularly from those 
states which do not regularly export corn. If our ports 
were always open, the existing laws of France would 
still prevent such a supply as would equalize prices ; and 
Fre'uch corn would only come in to us in considerable 
quantities in years of great abundance, when we were 
the least lii-.ely to want it, and when it was most likely to 
occasion a ului.* 

But if the fall of price occasioned in those two ways 
would not be essentially different, as it is quite certain 
tliat the rise of price in years of general scarcity would 
be less in those countries which habitually grow their 
own supplies ; it must be allowed that the range of varia- 
tion will be the least under such a system of restriction 
as without preventing importation when prices are high, 
will secure in ordinary years a growth equal to the con- 
sumption. 

One objection however to systems of restriction must 
always remain. They are essentially unsocial. I cer- 
tainlj think that, iji reference to the interests of a par- 
ticular state, a restriction upon the importation of foreign 
•om may sometimes be advantageous; but I feel still more 
certain that in reference to the interests of Europe in 



•Almost all the corn merchants who gave their evidence before the 
committees of the two houses iri 1S14 seemed fully aware of the low 
price: likely to be occasion-i, by aa abundant crop in Europe, if onr 
port* wv» op^ft te refteiT» it. 



Book. in. ESSAY ON POPULATION. 148 

Of Corn-Laws. Restrictions upon Importation. 

general the most perfect freedom of trade in corn, as 
well as in every other commodity, would he the most ad 
vantageous. Such a perfect freedom, however, could hard 
ly fail to be followed by a more free and equal distribu- 
tion of capital, which though it would greatly advance the 
riches and happiness of Europe, would unqaestionably 
render some parts of it poorer and less populous than they 
are at present ; and there is little reason to expect that 
individual states will ever consent to sacrifice the wealth 
within their own confines to the wealth of the world. 

It is further to be observed, that independently of more 
direct regulations, taxation alone produces a system of 
discouragements and encouragements which essentially 
interferes which the natural relations of commodities to 
each other; and as there is no hope of abolishing taxation 
it may sometimes be only by a further interference that 
these natural relations can be restored. 

A perfect freedom of trade therefore is a vision whick 
}t is to be feared can never be realized. But still it should 
be our object to make as near approaches to it as we can 
It should always be considered as the great general rule. 
And when any deviations from it are proposed, those who 
propose them are bound clearly to make out the excep- 
tion. 



CHAPTER XIll. 



Of increasing Wealthy as it affects the Condition of the 
Poor. 

The professed object of Adam Smith's Inquiry is the 
^i\''ature and Causes of the Wealth of JVations. There 
is another, however, still more interesting, which he oc- 
casionally mixes with it — the causes which affect the hap- 
piness and comfort of the lower orders of society, which 
in every nation form the most numerous class. These 
two subjects are, no doubt, nearly connected ; but the na- 
ture and extent of this connexion, and the mode in which 
increasing wealth operates on the condition of the poor 
have not been stated with sufficient correctness and pre- 
cision. 

Adam Smith, in his chapter on tlie wages of labour, 
considers every increase in the stock or revenue of the 
society as an increase in the funds for the maintenance 
of labour; and having before laid down the position that 
the demand for those who live by wages can only in- 
crease in proportion to the increase of the funds for the 
payment of wages, the conclusion naturally follows, that 
every increase of wealth tends to increase the demand for 

U 



150 ESSAY ON Book. III. 

. Of increasing Wealth, as it 

labour and to improve the condition of the lower classes 
of society.* 

Upon a nearer examination, however, it will be found 
that the funds for the maintenance of labour do not ne- 
cessarily increase with the increase of wealth, and very 
rarely increase in 'proportion to it; and that the condition 
of the lower classes of society does not depend exclu- 
sively upon the increase of^the funds for the maintenance 
of labour, or the power of supporting a greater number 
of labourers. 

Adam Smith defines the wealth of a state to be the an- 
nual produce of its land and labour. This definition evi- 
dently includes manufactured produce as well as the pro- 
duce of the land. Now upon the supposition that a nation, 
from peculiar situation and circumstances, was unable to 
procure an additional quantity of food, it is obvious that 
the produce of its labour would not necessarily come 
to a stand, although the produce of its land or its pow- 
er of importing corn were incapable of further in- 
crease. If the materials of manufactures could be ob- 
tained either at home or from abroad, improved skill 
and machinery might work them up to a greatly increas- 
ed amount with the same number of hands, and even 
the number of hands might be considerably increas- 
ed by an increased taste for manufactures compared 
with war and menial service, and by the employment 
consequertVu of a greater proportion of the whole 
population in manufacturing and commercial labour. 



*Vol. i. book i, c 8. 



Chap. XIIL POPULATION. 151 



affects the Condition of the Poor. 



That such a case does not frequently occur will be 
most readily allowed. It is not only however possible, 
but forms the specific limit to the increase of population 
in the natural progress of cultivation, with which limit, 
the limit to the further progress of wealth is obviously 
not contemporary. But though cases of this kind do not 
often occur, because these limits are seldom reach- 
ed; yet approximations to them are constantly taking 
place, and in the usual progress of improvement the in- 
crease of wealth and capital is rarely accompanied with 
a proportionately increased power of supporting an ad- 
ditional number of labourers. 

Some ancient nations, which according to the accounts 
we have received of them, possessed but an inconsiderable 
quantity of manufacturing and commercial ca])ital, appear 
to have cultivated their lands highly by means of an agra- 
rian division of property, and were unquestionably very 
populous. In such countries, though full of people al- 
ready, there would evidently be room for a very great 
increase of capital and riches ; but allowmg all the weight 
that is in any degree probable to the increased produc- 
tion or importation of food occasioned by the stimulus 
of additional capital, there would evidently not be room 
for a proportionate increase of the means of subsistence. 
If we compare the early state of our most flourishing 
European kingdoms with their present state, we shall find 
this conclusion confirmed almost universally by experi- 
ence. 

Adam Smith, m treating of the different progress of 



152 ESSAY ON Book. III. 

Of increasing. Wealth, as it 

opulence in different nations, says that England, since 
the time of Elizabeth, has been continually advancing in 
commerce and manufactures. He then adds, "The cul- 
" tivation and improvement of the country has no doubt 
" been gradually advancing. But it seems to have fol- 
" lowed slowly and at a distance the more rapid progress 
" of commerce and manufactures. The greater part of 
" the country must probably have been cultivated before 
" the reign of Elizabeth, and a very great part of it still 
" remains uncultivated and the cultivation of the far great- 
" er part is much inferior to what it might be.'* The same 
observation is applicable to most of the other countries of 
Europe. The best land would naturally be the first occupied 
ThiS land even with that sort ofindolentcultivation and great 
waste of labour which particularly marked the feudal times 
would be capable of supporting a considerable population; 
and on the increase of capital, the increasing taste for 
conveniences and luxuries, combined with the decreas- 
ing power of production in the new land to be taken in- 
to cultivation, would naturally and necessarily direct the 
greatest part of this new capital to com.merce and- man- 
ufactures, and occasion a more rapid increase of wealth 
than of population. 

The population of England accordingly in the reign 
of Elizabeth appears to have been nearly five millions, 
which would not be very far short of the half of what it 



*Vol. ii. book iv. c. 4. p. 133, 



Chap. XIII. POPULATION. 153 



affects the Condition of tlie Poor. 



is at present ; but when we consider the very great pro- 
portion which the products of commercial and manufac- 
turing industry now bear to the quantity of food raised 
for human consumption, it is probably a very low esti- 
mate to say that the mass of wealth or the stock and re^ 
venue of the country must, independently of any change 
in the value of the circulating medium, have increased 
above four times. Few of the other countries in Europe 
have increased to the same extent in the commercial and 
manufacturing wealth as England ; but as far as they have 
proceeded in this carreer, all appearances clearly indicate 
that the progress of their general wealth has been great- 
er than the progress of their means of supporting an ad- 
ditional population. 

That every increase of the stock or revenue of a na- 
tion cannot be considered as an increase of the real funds 
for the maintenance of labour will appear in a striking 
light in the case of China. v 

Adam Smith observes that China has probably long 
been as rich as the nature of her laws and institutions will 
admit; but intimates that with other laws and institutions, 
and if foreign commerce were held in honour, she might 
still be much richer. 

If trade and foreign commerce were held in great ho- 
nour in China, it is evident that, from the great number 
of her labourers and the cheapness of her labour, she 
might work up manufactures for foreign sale to a great 
amount. It is equally evident that, from the great bulk 
of provisions and the prodigious extent of her inland ter- 
ritory, she could not in return import such a quantity as 



154 ■ ESSAY ON Book III 



Of increasing Wealth, as it 

would be any sensible addition to her means of subsist- 
ence. Her immense amount of manufactures, thereforej 
she would either consume at home, or exchang-e tor lux- 
uries collected from all parts of the world. At present 
the country appears to be over-peopled compared with 
what its stock can employ, and no labour is spared in the 
production of food. An immense capital could not be 
employed in China in preparing manufactures for foreign 
trade, without alteiing this state of things, and taking off 
some labourers from agriculture, which might have a ten- 
dency to diminish the produce ot the country. Allow- 
ing, however, that this would be made up, and indeed 
more than made up, by the beneficial effects of improved 
skill and economy of labour in the cultivation of the 
poorest lands, yet, as the quantity of subsistence could 
be but little increased, the demand for manufactures 
which would raise the price of labour, would necessarily 
be followed by a proportionate rise in the price of pro- 
visions, and the labourer would be able to command but 
little more food than before. The counti^ would, how- 
ever, obviously be advancing- in wealth; the exchangea- 
ble value of the annual produce of its land and labour 
would be annually augmented ; yet the real funds for the 
maintenance of labour would be nearly stationary. The 
argument perhaps appears clearer when applied to Chi- 
na, because it is generally allowed that its wealth has 
been long stationary, and its soil cultivated nearly to the 
utmost.* 



•How far this latter opinion is to be depended upon it is not ver^ 



4J)uip. Xm POPULATION. 155 



affects the condition of the Poor. 



In all these cases, it is not on account of any undue pre- 
ference given to commerce and manufactures, compared 
with agriculture, that the effect just desciihed takes place, 
but merely because the powers of the earth in the pro- 
duction of food have narrower limits than the skill and 
tastes of mankind in giving value to raw materials, and 
consequently in the approach towards tlie limits of sub- 
sistence there is naturally more room, and consequently 
more encouragement, for the increase oi the one species 
of wealth than of the other. 

It must he allowed, then, that the funds for the main- 
tenance of labour do not necessarily increase with the in- 
crease of wealth, and very rarely increase in proportion 
to it. 

But the condition of the lower classes of society cer- 
tainly does not depend exclusively upon the increase of 
the funds for the maintenance of labour, or the means of 
supporting more labourers. That these means form al- 
ways a very powerful ingredient in the condition of the 
poor, and the main ingredient in the increase of popula- 
tion, is unquestionable. But, in the first place, tlie com- 
forts of the lower classes of society do not depend sole- 
ly upon food, nor even upon strict necessaries; and they 
cannot be considered as m a good state unless they have 
the command of some conveniences, and even luxuries. 



easy to say. Improved skill and a saving of labour would certainly 
enable the Chinese to cultivate some lands with advantage which they 
cannot cultivate now, but the more general use of horses instead of 
men might prevent this extended cyltivation from giving any encou- 
ragement to ari increa'se of people. 



156 ESSAY ON Book III. 

Of increasing Wealth, as it 

Secondly, the tendency in population fully to keep pace 
with the means of subsistence must in general prevent 
the increase of these means from having a great and per- 
manent effect in improving the condition ot the poor. — 
And, thirdly, the cause w^hich has the most lasting effect 
in improving the situation of the lower classes of society 
depends chiefly upon the conduct and prudence of the 
individuals themselves, and is, therefore, not immediately 
and necessarily connected with an increase in the means 
of subsistence. 

With a view therefore to the other causes which afFfect 
the condition of the labouring classes, as well as the in- 
crease of the means of subsistence, it may be desirable 
to trace more particularly the mode in which inci easing 
wealth operates, and to state both the disadvantages as 
well as the advantages with which it is accompanied. 

In the natural and regular progress of a country to a 
state of great wealth and population, there are two dis- 
advantages to which the lower classes of society seem 
necessarily to be subjected. The first is, a diminished 
power of supporting children under the existing habits of 
the society with respect to the necessaries of life. And 
the second — the employment of a larger proportion of 
the population in occupations less favorable to health, and 
more exposed to fluctuations of demand and unsteadiness 
of wages. 

A diminished power of supporting children is an ab- 
solutely unavoidable consequence of the progress of a 
country towards the utmost limits of its population. If 
we allow that the power of a given quantity of territory 



Chap. XIIl. POPULATIO?^ J 57 



affects the Condition of the Poor. 



to produce food has some limit, we must allow that as 
this limit is approached, and the increase of population 
becomes slower and slower, the power of supporting 
children will be less and less, till finally, when the in- 
crease of produce stops, it becomes only sufficient to 
maintain, on an average, families of such a size as will 
not allow of a further addition of numbers. This state 
of things is generally accompanied by a fall in the corn 
price of labour; but should this effect be prevented by 
the prevalence of prudential habits among the lower clas- 
ses of society, still the result just described must take 
place; and though from the powerful operation of the 
preventive check to increase, the wages of labour esti- 
mated even in corn might not be low, yet it is obvious 
that in this case the power of supporting children would 
rather be nominal than real ; and the moment this power 
began to be exercised to its apparent extent, it would 
cease to exist. 

The second disadvantage to which the lower classes of 
society are subjected in the progressive increase of 
wealth is, that a larger portion of them is engaged in un- 
healthy occupations, and in employments in which the 
wages of labour are exposed to much greater fluctuations 
than in agriculture and the simpler kinds of domestic 
trade. 

On the state of the poor employed in manufactories 
with respect to health, and the fluctuations of wages, I 
will beg leave to quote a passage from Dr. Aikin's De- 
scription of the Country round Manchester : — 

" The invention and improvements of machines tp 



158 ESSAY ON Book HI 

Of increasing Wealth, as it 

" shorten the labour have had a surprising influence to 
" extend our trade, and also to call in hands from all parts 
" particularly children for the cotton mills. It is the wise 
" plan of providence, that in this life there shall be no 
" £:ood without its attendant inconvenience. There are 
" M?nr which are too obvious in these cotton mills, at d 
" ;:'ir<i!ar factories, which counteract that increase of 
" "p's'qtion usually consequent on the improved facility 
" 'abour. In these, children of a very tender age are 
'^ ii»)loyed, many of them collected from the work- 
" houses in London and Westminster, and transported in 
" crowds as apprentices to masters resident many hun- 
•" dred miles distant, where they serve unknown, unpro- 
" tected and forgotten by those to whose care nature or 
" the laws had consigned them. These children are usu- 
" ally too lonsc confined to work in close rooms, often du- 
" rins: the whole night. The air they breathe from the 
** oil, &c. employed in the machinery, and other cireum- 
, " stances, is injurious ; little attention is paid to their 
" cleanliness ; and frequent changes from a warm and 
" dense to a cold and thin atmosphere are predisposing 
" causes to sickness and debility, and particularly to the 
" epidemic fever which is so generally to be met with in 
*' these factories. It is also much to be questioned if so- 
*' ciety does not receive detriment from the manner in 
** which children are thus employed during their early 
** years. The^ are not generally strong to labour, or ca- 
*' pable of oursuing any other branch of business when 
" the term of their aporenticeship expires. The females 
<* are wholly uninstructed in sewing, knitting, and other 



Chap.Xm. POPULATION. 159 



affects the Condition of the Poor. 



domestic affairs requisite to make them '.otable and fru- 
gal wives and mothers. This is a very great misfor- 
tune to them and to the public, as is sadly proved by 
a comparison of the families ot labourers in husbandry 
and those of manufacturers in general. In the former 
we meet with neatness, cleanliness and comfort ; in the 
latter with filth, rags and poverty, although their wa- 
ges may be nearly double to those of the husbandman. 
It must be added that the want of early religious in- 
struction and example, and the numerous and mdiscri- 
minate association in these buildings, are very unfavo* 
rable to their future conduct in life."* 
In the same work it appears that the register for the 
collegiate church of Manchester, from Christmas, 1793, 
to Christmas, 1 7 94, shewed a decrease of 1 68 marriages, 
538 christenings, and 250 burials. In the parish of Roch- 
dale, in the neighborhood, a still more melancholy reduc- 
tion in proportion to the number of people took place. — 
In 1792 the births were 746, the burials 646, and the 
marriages 339. In 1794 the births were 373, the burials 
671, and the marriages 199 The cause of this sudden 
check to population was the failure of demand and of 
commercial credit which occurred at the commencement 
of the war, and such a check could not have taken place in 



*P. 219. Dr. Aikin says that endeavours have been made to reme* 
dy these evils, which in some factories have been attended with suc- 
cess. And it is very satisfactory to be able to add, that since this ac» 
count was written, the situation of the children employed in the cot- 
ton mills has been further very essentially improved, partly by the in« 
terference of the legislature, and partly by the humane and liberal ex- 
ertions of individuals. 



160 ESSAY ON Book. III. 



Of increasing Wealth, as it 



so sudden a manner without the most severe distress, oc- 
casioned by the sudden reduction of wages. 

In addition to the fluctuations arising from the changes 
from peace to war ^nd from war to peace, it is well 
knowi) how subject particular manufactures are to fail 
from the caprices of taste. The weavers of Spitalfields 
were plunged in the most severe distress by the fashion 
of muslins instead of silks ; and great numbers of work- 
men in Sheffield and Birmingham were for a time thrown 
out of employment owing to the adoption of shoe strings 
and covered buttons, instead of buckles and metal buttons.-^ 
Our manufactures, taken in the mass, have increased with 
prodigious rapidity, but in particular places they have 
failed ; and the parishes where this has happened are 
invariably loaded with a c rowd of poor in the most dis- 
tressed and miserable condition. 

In the evidence brought before the House of Lords du- 
ring the inquiries which preceded the Corn-Bill of 1815, 
various accounts are produced from different manufactor- 
ies, intended to shew that the high price of corn has 
rather the effect of lowermg than of raising the price 
of manufacturing labour.* Adam Smith has clearly and 
correctly stated that the money price of labour depends 
upoa the money price of provisions, and the state of the 
dema»d and the supply of labour. Alid he shews how 
much he thinks it is occasionally affected by the latter 
cause, by explaining in what manner it may vary in an op- 



Keporta p. 51. 



Chap. XIII. POPULATION. 161 

affects the Condition of the Poor. 

posite direction from the price of provisions during the 
pressure of a scarcity. The accounts brought before the 
House of Lords are a striking illustration of this part ot 
his pAjposition ; but they certainly do not prove the in- 
correctness of the other part of it, as it is quite obvious 
that, whatever may take place for a few years, the sup- 
ply of manufacturing labour cannot possibly be continu- 
ed in the market unless the natural or necessary price, 
that is, the price necessary to continue it in the market, 
be paid, and this of course is not done unless the money 
price be so proportioned to the price of provisions, that 
labourers are enabled to bring up families ol such a size 
as will supply the number of hands required. 

But though these accounts do not in any degree inval- 
idate the usual doctrines respecting labour, or the state- 
ments of Adam Smith, they shew very clearly the great 
fluctuations to which the condition of the manufacturing 
labourer is subjected. 

In looking over these accounts it will be found that in 
some cases the price of weaving has fallen a third, or near- 
ly one-half, at the same time that the price of wheat has 
risen a third, nor nearly one half; and yet these propor- 
tions do not always express the full amount of the fluctu- 
ations, as it sometimes happens that when the price is 
low, the state of the demand will not allow of the usual 
number of hours of working; and when the price is 
high, it will admit of extra hours. 

That from t|ie same causes there are sometimes varia- 
tions of a similar kind in the price of task-work in agri- 
QHlture will be readily admitted ; but in the first placcj 



162 ESSAY ON Book HI. 

Of increasing Wealth, as it 

they do not appear to be nearly so considerable ; and se- 
<Jondly , the great mass of agricultural labourers is employ 
ed by the day, and a sudden and general fall in the money 
price of agricultural day-labour is an event of extremely 
rare occurrence.* 

It must be allowed then, that m the natural and usual 
progress of wealth, the means of marrying early and sup- 
porting a family are diminished, and a greater proportion 
of the population is engaged in employments less favour- 
able to health and morals, and more subject to fluctuations 
in the price of labor, than the population employed m 
agriculture. 

These are no doubt considerable disadvantages, and 
they would be sufficient to render the progress of riches 
decidedly unfavourable to the condition of the poor, if 
they were not counteracted by advantages which nearly 
if not fully, counterbalance them. 

And, first, it is obvious that the profits of stock are 
that source of revenue from which the middle classes are 
chiefly maintained ; and the increase of capital, which is 
both the cause and effect of increasing riches, may be said 
to be the efficient cause of the emancipation of the great 
body of society from a dependence on the landlords. In 
a country of limited extent, consisting of fertile land divi- 
ded into large properties, as long as the capital remains in- 
considerable, the structure of society is most unfavour- 



*Almost the only instance on record in this country is that which 
has lately taken place (1815 and 1816,) occasioned by an unparrallel- 
ed fall in the exchangeable value of the raw produce, which has neces- 
sarily disabled the holders of it from employing the same quantity of 
labour at the same price. 



Chap. XIIL POPULATION. 16S 

affects the Condition of the Poor, 

able to liberty and good government. This was exactly 
the state of Europe in the feudal times. The landlords 
could in no other way spend their incomes than by 
maintaining a great number of idle followers ; and it was 
by the growth of capital in all the employments to which it 
is directed that the pernicious power of the landlords was 
destroyed and their dependent followers were turned into 
merchants, manufacturers, tradesmen, farmers and inde- 
pendent labourers ; a change of prodigious advantage to 
the great body of society, including the labouring class- 
es. 

Secondly ; in the natural progress of cultivation and 
wealth, the production of an additional quantity of corn 
will require more labour, while, at the same time, from 
the accumulation and better distribution of capital, the 
continual improvements made in machinery; and the facili- 
ties opened to foreign commerce, manufactures and for- 
eign commodities will be produced or purchased with less 
labour^ and consequently a given quantity of corn will 
command a much greater quantity of manufactures and 
foreign commodities than while the country was poor. 
Although, therefore, the labourer may earn less corn than 
before, the superior value which every portion which he 
does not consume in kind will have in the purchase of con- 
veniences, may more than counterbalance this diminution. 
He will not indeed have the same power of maintain- 
ing a large family; but with a small family he may be 
better lodged and clothed, and better able to command 
the decencies and comforts of Hfe. 

Thirdly ; it seems to be proved by experience, that 



164 . ESSAY ON Book III 

r ■ . . . . ... - 

Of increasing Wealth, as it 

the lower classes of society seldom acquire a decided 
taste for conveniences and comforts till they become plen- 
tiful compared with food, which they never do till food 
has become in some degree scarce. If the labourer can 
obtain a full support of himself and family by two or three 
days' labour ; and if, to furnish himself with convenien- 
ces and comforts, he must work three or four days more, 
he will generally think the sacrifice too great compared 
with the objects to be obtained, which are not strictly 
necessary to him, and will therefore often prefer the lux- 
ury of idleness to the luxury of improved lodging and 
clothing. This is said by Humboldt to be particularly 
the case iis some parts of South America, and to a certains 
extent prevails in Ireland, India, and all countries it^here 
food is plentiful compared with capital and manufactured 
commodities. On the other hand, if the main part of the 
labourer's time be occupied in procuring food, habits of 
industry are necessarily generated, and the remaining 
time, which, is but inconsiderable compared with com- 
modities it 'will purchase, is seldom grudged. It is un- 
der these circumstances, particularly when combined 
with a good government, that the lower classes of society 
are most likely to acquire a decided taste for the conve- 
niences and comforts of life ; and this taste may be such 
as even to prevent, after a certain period, a further fall in 
the corn price of labour. But if the corn price of labour 
continues tolerably high while the relative value of com- 
modities compared with corn, falls very considerably, the 
labourer is placed in a most favourable situation. Owing 
to his decided taste for conveniences and comforts, the 



Chap. XIII POPULATION. 165 

affects the condition of the Poor. 

good corn wages of labour will not generally lead to 
early marriages; yet in individual cases, wliere large 
families occur, there will be the means of supporting 
them independently, by the sacrifice of the accustomed 
conveniences and comforts ; and thus the poorest of the 
lower classes will rarely be stinted in food, while the 
great mass of them will not only have sufficient means of 
subsistence, but be able to command no inconsiderable 
quantity of those conveniences and comforts, which at 
the same time that they gratify a natural or acquired want, 
tend unquestionably to improve the mind and elevate the 
character. 

On an attentive review then of the effects of increasing 
wealth on the condition of the poor, it appears that, al- 
though such an increase does not imply a proportionate 
increase of the funds for the maintenance of mere labour, 
yet it brings with it advantages to tire lower classes of so- 
ciety which may fully counterbalance the disadvantages 
with which it is attended; and, strictly speaking, the 
good or bad condition of the poor is not necessarily con- 
nected with any particular stage in the progress of society 
to its full complement of wealth. A rapid increase of 
wealth indeed, whether it consists principally in additions 
to the means of subsistence or to the stock of convenien- 
ces and comforts, will always, ceteris pariaus have 
a favourable effect on the poor ; but the influence even of 
this cause is greatly modified and altered by other circum- 
stances, and nothing but the union of individual prudence 
with the skill and industry which produce wealth can pes- 

W 



166 ESSAY ON POPULATION Book. IIL 

Of increasing Wealth, &c. 

manently secure to the lower classes of society that share 
of it which it is on every account so desirable that they 
should possesSi; 



ADDITION TO CHAPTER XIV. 



(Insertion in Page 204. Vol. 2nd, LcntJon Edition 1807- And Page 
Vol. 2d. AmericanvMi.tbn, 1809.] 

General Observations. 

In stating that in this, and all the other cases and sys- 
tems which have been considered, the progress of popu- 
lation will be mainly regulated and limited by the real 
wages of labour, it is necessary to remark that practically 
the current wages of labour estimated in the necessaries 
of life do not always correctly represent the quantity of 
these necessaries which it is in the power of the lower 
classes to consume ; and that sometimes the error is in 
excess and sometimes in defect. 
In a state of things when the prices of corn and of all sorts 
of commodities are rising, the money wages of labour do 
not always rise in proportion; but this apparent disadvan- 
tage to the labouring classes is sometimes more than coun- 
terbalanced by the plenty of employment, the quantity of 
task- work that can be obtained, and the opportunity giveu 
to women and children to add considerably to the ear- 
nings of the family. In this case, the power of the labour- 
ing classes to command the necessaries of life is much 
greater than is implied by the current rate of their wages, 
and will of course have a proportionably greater effect 
on the population. 



168 ESSAY ON Book III 

General Observations. 

On ther other hand, when prices are generally falling 
it often happens that the current rate of wages -does not 
fall in proportion ; but this apparent advantage is in the 
same manner often more than counterbalanced by the 
scarcity of work, and the impossibility of finding employ- 
ment tor all the members of a labouier's family who are 
able and willing to be indut^trious. In this case, the pow- 
ers of the labouring classes to command the necessaries 
of life will evidently be less than is implied by the cur- 
rent rate of their wages. 

In the same manner parish allowances distributed to 
families, the habitual practice of task-work, and the fre- 
quent employment of women and children, will affect pop- 
ulation like a rise in the real wages of labour. And on 
the other hand, the paying of every sort of labour by the 
day the absence of employment for women and children, 
and the practice among labourers of not working more 
than three or four days in the week either from inveterate 
indolence, or any other cause, will affect population like a 
low price of labour. 

In all these cases the real earnings of the labouring 
classes throughout the year, estimated in food, are differ- 
ent from the apparent wages ; but it will evidently be 
the average earnings of the families of the labouring class- 
es throughout the year on which the encouragement to 
marriage, and the power of supporting children, will de- 
pend, and not merely the wages of day labour estimated 
in food. 

An attention to this very essential point will explain 
the reason whjr, m many instances, the progress of pop- 



Chap. XII. POPULATION. im 

General Observations. 

ulation does not appear to be regulated by what are usual- 
ly called the real wages of labour; and why this progress 
may occasionally be greater, Avhen the price of a day's 
labour will purchase rather less than the medium quanti- 
ty of corn, than when it will purchas*' rather more. 

In our own country, for instance, about the middle of 
the last century, the price of corn was very low ; and for 
twenty years together, from 1735 to 1755, a day's la- 
bour would, on an average, purchase a peck of wheat. 
During this period, population increased at a moderate 
rate ; but not by any means with the same rapidity as from 
1790 to 1811, when the average wages of day-labour 
would not in general purchase quite so much as a peck ot 
wheat. In the latter case, however, there was a more 
rapid accumulation of capital, and a greater demand for 
labour ; and though the continued rise of provisions still 
keep them rather ahead of wages, yet the fuller employ- 
ment for every body that would work, the greater quan- 
tity of task-work done the higher relative value of corn 
compared with manufactures, the increased use of 
potatoes, and the greater sum distributed in parish 
allowances, unquestionably gave to the lower clas- 
ses of society the power of commanding a greater quan- 
tity of food, and will account for the more rapid in- 
crease of population in the latter period, in perfect con- 
sistency with the general principle. 

On similar grounds, if, in some warm climates and rich 
soils, where corn is cheap, the quantity of food earned 
by a day's labour be such as to promise a more rapid 
progress in population than is really knou'n to take place^ 



no ESSAY ON POPULATION. Book. Ill 

General Observations. 

the fact will be fully accounted for, if it be found that in- 
veterate habits of indolence, fostered by a vicious ga- 
vernment, and a slack demand for labour, prevent any thing 
like constant employment* It would of course require 
high corn wages of day labour even to keep up the sup- 
ply of a stationary population, where the days of work- 
ing would only amount to half of the year. 

In the case also of the prevalence of prudential habitSy 
and a decided taste for the conveniences and comforts of 
life, as, according to the supposition, these habits and 
tastes do not operate as an encouragement to early mar- 
riages, and are not in fact spent almost entirely in the 
purchase of corn, it is quite consistent with the general 
principles laid down, that the population should not pro- 
ceed at the same rate as is usual, cceteris paribus ^ in other 
countries, where the corn wages of labour are equally 
high. 



*This observation is exemplified in the slow progress of population 
m some parts of the Spanish dominions in S. America, compared with. 
^ts progress in the United States, 



ADDITION TO CHAPTER XIV, 



{Inserjtion in Page'214, Vol. 2nd, Lofidoh Edition 1807. And Pa^ 
Vol. 2nd, AmericanEdition, 1809] 

General Observations. 

What is here said of the order of precedence with res^ 
pect to agriculture and population, does not invalidate 
what was said in an earlier part of this work on the ten ■ 
dency to an oscillation or alternation in the increase of 
population and food in the natural course of their pro- 
gress. In this progress nothing is more usual than for the 
population to increase at certain periods faster than food : 
indeed it is a part of the general principle that it should do 
so ; and when the money wages ot labour are prevented 
from falling by the employment of the increasing popu- 
lation in manufactures, the rise in the price of corn which 
the increased competition for it occasions is practically 
the most natural and frequent stimulus to agriculture. — 
But then it must be recollected that the great relative in- 
crease of population absolutely implies a previous in- 
crease of food at some time or other greater than the low- 
est wants of the people. Without this, the population 
could not possibly have gone forward.* 

♦According to the principle of population, thehumaji race has a ton- 



I^^ ESSAY ON Book. III. 



General Observations. 



Universally, when the population of a country is for a 
longer or shorter time stationary, owing to the low corn 
wages of labour, a case which is not unfrequent, it is ob- 
vious that nothing but a previous increase of food, or at 
least an increase of the portion awarded to the labourer, 
can enable the population again to proceed forwards. 

And, in the same manner, with a view to any essential 
improvement in the condition of the labourer, which is 
to give him a greater effective command over the means 
of comfortable subsistence, it is absolutely necessary that 
setting out from the lowest point, the increase of food 
must precede and be greater than the increase of popu- 
lation. 

Strictly speaking then, as man cannot live without food, 
there can be no doubt that in the order of precedence 
food must take the lead ; although when, from the state 
of cultivation and other causes, the average quantity of 
food awarded to the labourer is considerably more than 
sufficient to maintain a stationary population, it is quite 
natural that the diminution of this quantity, from the ten- 
dency of population to increase, should be one of the 
most powerful and constant stimulants to agriculture. 

It is worthy also of remark that on this account a stira^ 
ulus to the increase of agriculture is much more easy 
when, from the prevalence of prudential restraint, or any 



dency to increase faster than food. It has therefore a constant tenden- 
cy to people a country fully up to the limits of subsistence, but by 
the laws of nature it can never so beyond them, meaning, of course, 
by these limits, the lowest quantity of food which will maintain a sta- 
tionary population. Population, therefore; can never, strictly speak- 
ilig, precede food. 



Chap. XIV. POPULATION. 17S 



General Observations. 



other cause, the labourer is well paid ; as in this case a 
rise in the price of corn, occasioned either by the in* 
crease of population or a foreign demand, will increase 
for a time the profits of the farmer, and often enable hint 
to make permanent improvements ; whereas, when the 
labourer is paid so scantily that his wages will not allow 
even of any temporary diminution without a diminution 
of population, the increase of cultivation and population 
must from the first be accompanied with a fall of profits. 
The prevalence of the preventive check to population 
and the good average wages of the labourer will rather 
promote than prevent that occasional increase and de-' 
crease of them, which as a stimulus seems to be favora- 
ble to the increase both of food and population. 



ADDITION TO CHAPTER XlVv 



tinsertion in Page 222, Vol. 2nd, London Edition, 1807; and pag» 
Vol. 2nd, American Edition, 1809.] 

General Observations. 

\i may be thought that the effects here referred to as 
resulting from greatly increased resources, could not take 
place in a country where there were towns and manufac* 
lories ; and that they are not quite consistent with what 
was said in a former part of this work, namely, that the 
ultimate check to population (the want of food) is never 
the immediate check, except in cases of actual famine. 

If the expressions are unguardedly strong, they will 
certainly allow of considerable mitigation, without any 
sensible diminution in the practical force and application 
of the argument. But I am inclined to think that though 
they are unquestionably strong, they are not very far 
from the truth. The great cause which fills towns 
and manufactories is an insufficiency of employment, and 
consequently of the means of support in the country ; — ■ 
and if each labourer, in the parish where he was born, 
could command food, clothing, and lodging for ten chil- 
dren, the population of the towns would soon bear but a 
small proportion to the population in the country. And 
if to this consideration we add, that in the case supposed, 



Chap. XIV ESSAY ON POPULATION. 175 



General Observations. 



the proportion of births and marriages in towns would 
be greatly increased, and all the mortality arising from 
poverty almost entirely removed, I should by no means 
be surprised (after a short interval for the change of ha- 
bits) at an increase of population, even m China, equal 
to that which is referred to in tlie text. 

With regard to this country, as it is positively known 
that the rate of increase has changed from that which 
would double the population in 120 years, or more, to 
that which would double it in 55 years, under a great in- 
crease of towns and manufactures, I feel very little doubt 
that, if the resources of the country were so augmented 
and distributed, as that every man could marry at 18 or 
20, with a certainty of being able to support the largest 
family, the population of the British Isles would go oa 
increasing at a rate which would double the population ii\ 
25 years. It appears, from our registers, that England 
is a healthier country than America. At the time that 
America was increasing with extraordinary rapidity, in 
some of her towns the deaths exceeded the births. In the 
English towns, with their present improvements, I do not 
think this would ever be the case, if all the lower classes 
could marry as soon as they pleased, and there was little 
or no premature mortality from the consequences of po- 
verty. 

But whether the habits and customs of an old state 
could be so changed by an abundance of food, as to make 
it increase nearly like a new colony, is a question of 
mere curiosity. The argument only requires that a 
change from scanty to abundant means oS supporting a 



ne ESSAY ON POPULATION Book. Ill 

General Observations. 

family should occasion*, in old states, a marked increase 
of population ; and this, it is conceived, cannot possibly 
be denied. 



BOOK IV —CHAP. V4.. 



XTq follow Page 316, Vol. 2nd, London Edition 1807. And Page 387, 

Vol. 2nd, AmericanEdition, 1809] 

Effects of the Knowledge of the principal Cause of Pover- 
ty on Civil Liberty. (Contimied *) 

The reasonings of the foregoing chapter have been 
strikingly confirmed by the events of the last two or three 
years. Perhaps there never was a period when more er- 
roneous views were formed by the lower elasses of so- 
ciety of the effects to be expected from reforms in the 
government, when these erroneous views were more im- 
mediately founded on a total misapprehension of the prin- 
cipal cause of poverty, and when they more directly led 
to results unfavorable to liberty. 
f One of the mam causes of complaint against the go- 
vernment has been, that a considerable number of labour- 
ers, who are both able and willing to work, are wholly 
out of employment, and unable consequently to command 
the necessaries of life. 

That this state of things is one of the most afflicting 
events that can occur in civilized life, that it is a natural 
and pardonable cause of discontent among the lower clas- 



*Written in 1817. 



its ESSAY ON Book IV. 

Effects of the Knowledge of the 

ses of society, and that every effort should be made by 
the higher classes to mitigate it, consistently with a pro- 
per care not to render it permanent, no man of humanity 
can doubt. But that such a state of things may occuj- in 
the best conducted and most economical government that 
ever existed is as certain as that governments have not the 
power of commanding with effect the resources of a 
country to be progressive, when they are naturally sta- 
tionary or dechnmg: 

It will be allowed that periods of prosperity may oc- 
cur in any well governed state, during which an extraor- 
dinary stimulus may be given to its wealth and popula- 
tion, which cannot in its nature be permanent. If, for in- 
stance, new channels of trade are opened, new colonies 
are possessed, new inventions take place in machinery, 
and new and great improvements are made in agriculture, 
it is quite obvious that while the markets at home and 
abroad will readily take off at advantageous prices the 
increasing produce, there must be a rapid increase of 
capital, and an unusual stimulus given to the population. 
On the other hand, if subsequently these channels of 
trade are either closed by accident or contracted by fo- 
reign competition , if colonies are lost, or the same pro- 
duce is supplied from other quarters ; if the markets, ei- 
ther from glut or competition, cease to extend with the 
extension of the new machinery ; and if the improve- 
ments in agriculture from any cause whatever cease to be 
progressive, it is as obvious that, just at the time when 
the stimulus to population has produced its greatest ef- 
fect, the means of employing and supporting this popula- 



Chap. VI. POPULATION. 17^ 

principal Cause of Poverty, &c. 

tion may, in the natural course of things, and without any 
fault whatever in the government, become deficient. This 
failure must unavoidably produce great distress among 
the labouring classes of society ; but it is quite clear that 
no inference can be drawn from this distress that a radi- 
cal change is required in the government; and the attempt 
to accomplish such a change might only aggravate the 
evil. 

It has been supposed in this case, that the government 
has in no respect by its conduct contributed to the pres- 
sure in question, a supposition which in practice perhaps 
will rarely be borne out by the fact. It is unquestionably 
in the power of a government to produce great distress by 
war and taxation, and it requires some skill to distinguish 
the distress which is the natural result of these causes, 
from that which is occasioned in the way just described. 
In our own case "unquestionably both descriptions of caus- 
es, have combined, but the former in a greater degree than 
the latter. War and taxation, as far as they operate di- 
rectly and simply, tetid to destroy or retard the progress 
of capital, produce and population; but during the late 
war these checks to prosperity have been much more 
than overbalanced by a combination of circumstances 
which has given an extraordinary stimulus to production. 
That for this overbalance of advantages the country can- 
not be considered as much indebted to the government, is 
most certain The government during the last twenty- 
five years has shewn no very sreat love either of peace 
or liberty ; and no particular economy in the use of npr 



184 ESSAY ON Book IF. 

Effects of the knowledge of the 

tional resources ; It has proceeded in a very straight-for- 
ward manner to spend great sums in war and to raise them 
by very heavy taxes. It has no doubt done its part to- 
wards the dilapidation of the national resources. But 
still the broad fact must stare every impartial observer in 
the face, that at the end of the war in 1814 the national 
resources were not dilapidated ; and that not only were 
the wealth and population of the country considerably 
greater than they were at the commencement of the war 
but that they had increased in the interval at a more rapid 
rate than was ever experienced before. 

Perhaps this may justly be considered as one of the 
most extraordinary facts in history; and it certainly follows 
from it, that the sufferings of the country since the peace 
have not been occasioned so much by the usual and most 
natural effects to be expected from war and taxation, as 
by'the sudden ceasing of an extraordinary stimulus to pro- 
duction, the distresses consequent upon which, though 
increased no doubt by the weight of taxation, do not es- 
sentially arise from it, and are not directly therefore, and 
immediately, to be relieved by its removal. 

That the labouring classes ot society should not be ful- 
ly aware that the main causes of their distress are to a 
certain extent and for a certain time, irremediable, is na- 
tural enough; and that they should listen much more rea*- 
dily and willingly to those who confidently promise im- 
mediate relief, rather than to those who can only tell them 
unpalatable truths, is by no means surprising. But it 
must be allowed that full advantage has been taken by the 
popular orators and writers of a crisis which has given 



Chap. VL POPULATION 181 



Principal Cause of Poverty, &c, 



them so much poiver. Partly from ignorance, and part- 
ly from design, every thing that could tend to enlighten 
the labouring classes as to the real nature of their situa- 
tion, and encourage them to bear an unavoidable pres- 
sure with patience, has been either sedulously kept out 
of their vievr, or clamorously reprobated ; and every 
thing that could tend to deceive them to aggravate and en- 
courage their discontents, and to raise unreasonable and 
extravagant expectations as to the relief to be expected 
from reform, has been as sedulously brought forward. If 
under these circumstances the reforms proposed had been 
accomplished, it is impossible that the people should not 
have been most cruelly disappointed ; and under a system 
of universal suffrage and annual parliaments, a general 
disappointment of the people would probably lead to 
every sort of experiment in government, till the career 
of change was stopped by a military despotism. The 
warmest friends of genuine liberty might justly feel alarm- 
ed at such a prospect. To a cause conducted upon such 
principles, and likely to be attended with such results 
they could not of course, consistently with their duty, 
lend any assistance. And, if with great difficulty, and 
against the sense, of the great mass of petitioners, they 
were to affect a more moderate and more really useful re- 
form, they could not but feel certain that the unavoidable 
disappointment of the people woul^ be attributed to the 
half-measures which had been pursued ; and that they 
would be either forced to proceed to the more radical 
changes, or submit to a total loss of their influence and 



182 ESSAY ON Book. IV. 



Effects of the knowledge of the 



and popularit)^ by stopping short while the distresses of 
the people were unrelieved, their discontents unallayed, 
and the great panacea on which they had built their san- 
guine expectations untried. 

These considerations have naturally paralyzed the 
exertions of the best friend of liberty ; and those sal- 
utary reforms which are acknowledged to be neces- 
sary in order to repair the breaches of time, and 
improve the fabric of our constitution, are thus render'^ 
ed much more dificult and consequently much less pro- 
bable. 

But not only have the false expectations and extrava- 
gant demands suggested by the leaders of the people given 
an ea> V victory to government over every proposition for 
teforoi, whether violent or moderate, but they have fur- 
nished the most fatal instruments of offensive attack a- 
gamst the constiution itself. They are naturally calculat- 
ed to excite some alarm, and to check moderate reform ; 
bu alarm, when once excited, seldoms knows where to 
stop, and the causes of it are particularly liable to be ex- 
aggerated. There is reason to believe that it has been un- 
der the influence of exaggerated statements, and of infer- 
ences drawn by exaggerated fears from these statements 
that acts unfavourable to liberty have been passed without 
an adequate necessity. But the power of creating these ex- 
agjirerated fears, and of passina: these acts has been un- 
questionably furnished by the extravagant expectations 
of the ipoi)le. And it must be allowed that the present 
times iurnish a very striking illustration of the doc- 
rine that an ignorance of the principal cause of pover- 



Chap. VI. POPULATION. 183 



Principal cause of Poverty, &c. 



ty is peculiarly unfavourable, and that a knowledge 
of it must be peculiarly favourable, to the cause of civil 
liberty. 



CHAPTER XII * 



[To follow Page 387. Vol. 2nd, London Edition 1807. And Page 
Vol. 2d. American Edition, 1809.] 

Different Plans of improving the Condition of the poor 
considered (continued.) 

The increasing portion of the society which has of late 
years become either wholly or partially dependent upon 
parish assistance, together with the increasing burden of 
the poor's rates on the landed property, has for some 
time been working a gradual change in the public opinion 
respecting the benefits resulting to the labouring classes 
of society, and to society in general, from a legal provision 
for the poor. But the distress which has followed the 
peace of 1814, and the great and sudden pressure which 
it has occasioned on the parish rates, have accelerated 
this change in a very marked manner. More just and en- 
lightened views on the subject are daily gaining ground ; 
the difficulties attending a legal provision for the poor are 
better understood, and more generally acknowledged ; 
and opinions are now seen in print and heard in conversa- 
tion, which twenty years ago would almost have been 
considered as treason to the interests of the state. 



Written in 1817. 



Chap. XII POPULATION. 185 



Condition of the Poor, considered 



This change of public opinion, stimulated by the se- 
vere pressure of the moment, has directed an unusual 
portion of attention to the subject of the poor-laws ; aud 
as it is acknowledged that the present system has essen- 
tially failed, various plans have been proposed either as 
substitutes or improvements. It may be usetul to inquire 
shortly how far the plans which have already been pub- 
lished are calculated to accomplish the ends which they 
propose. It is generally thought that some measure of 
importance will be the result of the present state of pub- 
lic opinion. To the permanent success of anv such mea- 
sure, it is absolutely necessary that it should ap-ply 
itself in some degree to the real source of the difficul- 
ty. Yet there is reason to fear, that notwithstanding the 
present improved knowledge on the subject, this pomt 
may be too much overlooked. 

Among the plans which appear to have excited a con- 
siderable degree of the public attention, is one of Mr. 
Owen. I have already adverted to some views of Mr. 
Owen in a chapter on Systems of Equality, and spoke of 
his experience with the respect which is justly due to it. 
If the question were merely how to accommodate, sup- 
port and train, in the best manner, societies of 1 200 peo- 
ple, there are perhaps few persons more entitled to atten- 
tion than Mr, Owen . but in the plan which he has pro- 
posed he seems totally to have overlooked the nature of 
the problem to be solved. This problem is, Hov) to pro- 
vide for those wlio are in xoant^ in such a manner as to 
prevent a continual increase of their numbers^ and oj the 
proportion which they bear to the whole society. And it 



186 ESSAY ON Book IV 

Different Plans of improving the 

must be allowed that Mr. Owen's plan not only does not 
make the slightest approach towards accomplishing 
this object, but seems to be peculiarly calculated to ef- 
fect an object exactly the reverse of it that is, to increase 
and multiply the number of paupers. 

If the establishments which he recommends could really 
be conducted according to his apparent intentions, the 
order of nature and the lessons of providence would in- 
deed be in the most marked manner reversed ; and the 
idle and profligate would be placed in a situation which 
might justly be the envy of the industrious and virtuous. 
The labourer or manufacturer who is now ill lodged and 
ill clothed, and obliged to work twelve hours a day to 
maintain his family, could have no motive to continue his 
exertions, if the reward for slackening them, and seeking 
parish assistance, was good lodging, good clothing, the 
maintenance and education of all his children, and the 
exchange of twelve hours hard work in an unwholesome 
manufactory for four or five hours of easy agricultural 
labour on a pleasant farm. Under these temptations, the 
numbers yearly falling into the new establishments from 
the labouring and manufacturing classes, together with the 
rapid increase by procreation of the societies themselves, 
would very soon render the first purchases of land utter- 
ly incompetent to their support. More land must fhen be 
purchased, and fresh settlements made; and if the higher 
classes of society were bound to proceed in the system 
according to its apparent spirit and intention, there cannot 
be a doubt that the whole nation would shortly become a 
nation of paupers with a community of goods. 



Chap. Xll. POPULATION. IS*: 



Condition of the Poor, considered. 



Such a result might not perhaps be alarming to Mr. 
Owen. It is just possible indeed that he may have had this 
result in contemplation when he proposed his plan, and 
have^thought that it was the best mode of quietly introduc- 
ing hat community of goods which he believes is ne- 
cessary to complete the virtue and happiness of society. 
But to those who totally dissent from him as to the effects 
to be expected from a community of goods; to those who 
are convinced that even his favourite doctrine, tiiat a man 
can be trained to produce more than he consumes, which 
is no doubt true at present, may easily cease to be true, 
when cultivation is pushed beyond the bounds prescribed 
to it by private property ;* the approaches towards a sys- 
tem of this kind, will be considered as approaches to- 
wards a system of universal indolence, poverty and 
wretchedness 

Upon the supposition then, that Mr, Owen's plan could 
be effectively executed, and that the various pauper soci- 
eties scattered over the country could at first be made to 
realize his most sanguine wishes, such might be expect- 
ed to be their termination m a moderately short time, 
from the natural and necessary action of the principle of 
po}julation. 

But it is probable that the other grand objection to all 
systems of common property would even at the very- 
outset confound the experience of Mr. Owen, and destroy 
the happiness to which he looks forward. In the socie- 
ty at the Lanerk Mills, two powerful stimulants to indus- 



"See O.' X. "b. iii. p. IRfi. 



188 "' ESSAY ON Book.lK^ 

Different Plans of improving the 

try and good conduct are in action, which would be to- 
tally wanting in the societies proposed. At Lanerk, the 
whole of every man's earnings is his own; and his pow- 
er of mamtaining himself, his wife and children, in de- 
cency and comfort, will be in exact proportion to his in- 
dustry, sobriety and economy. At Lanerk, also, if any 
workman be perseveringly indolent and negligent, if he 
get drunk and spoil his work, or if in any way he con- 
duct himself essentially ill, he not only naturally suffers 
by the diminution of his earnings, but may at any time be 
turned off, and the society be relieved from the influence 
and example of a profligate and dangerous member. Oh 
the other hand, in the pauper establishments proposed in 
the present plan, the industry, sobriety and good conduct 
ot each individual, would be very feebly indeed connect- 
ed with his power of maintaining himself and family 
comfortably ; and in the case of persevering idleness and 
misconduct, instead of the simple and effective remedy 
of dismission, recourse must be had to a system of direct 
punishment of some kind or other, determined, and en- 
forced by authority, which is always painful and distress- 
ing, and generally inefficient. 

I confess it appears to me that. the most successful ex- 
perience, in such an establishment as that of Lanerk, fur- 
nishes no ground whatever to say what could be done to- 
wards the improvement of society in an establishment 
where the produce of all the labour employed would go 
to a common stock, and dismissal from the very nature 
and object of the institution, would be impossible. If 
Under such disadvantages the proper management of these 



Ckap. XII. POPULATION. 18^ 

Condition of the Poor, considered. 

establishments were within the limits of possibility, what 
judgment, what firmness, what patience, would be requir- 
ed for the purpose ! Bat where are such qualities to be 
found in sufficient abundance to manage one or two mil- 
lions of people ? 

On the whole then it may be concluded, that Mr. 
Owen's plan would have to encounter obstacles that real- 
ly appear to be insuperable, even at its first outset; and 
that if these could by any possible means be overcome, 
and the most complete success attained, the system would, 
without some most unnatural and unjust laws to prevent 
the progress of population, lead to a state of universal 
poverty and distress, in which, though all the rich might 
be made poor, none of the poor could be made rich, not 
even so rich as a common labourer at present. 

The plan for bettering the condition of the labouring 
classes of the community, published by Mr. Curwen, is 
professedly a slight sketch ; but principles, not details, 
are what it is our present object to consider ; and the 
principles on which he would proceed are declared with 
sufficient distinctness, when he states the great objects of 
his design to be, 

1. Meliorating the Resent wretched condition of the 
lower orders of the peoplfe. 

^. Equalizing by a new tax the present poor's rates, 
which must be raised for their relief. 

3, And givmg to all those who may think proper to 
place themselves under its protection, a voice in the lo- 
cal management and distribution of the fund destined for 
their support. 

Z 



190 ' ESSAY ON Book IV 

DiiFerent plans of improving the 

The first proposition is, of course, or ought to be, the 
object of every plan proposed. And the two last may be 
considered as the modes by which it is intended to ac- 
complish it. 

But it is obvious that these two propositions though they 
may be both desirable on other accounts, not only do not 
really touch, but do not even propose to touch the great 
problem. We wish to check the increase and diminish 
the proportion of paupers, in order to give greater wealth, 
happiness and independence to the mass of the labouring 
classes. But the equalization of the poor's rates, simply 
considered, would have a very strong tendency to increase 
rather than to diminish the number of the dependent 
poor. At p e ent the parochial rates fall so very heavily 
upon one particular species of property, that the persons, 
whose business it is to allow them, have in general a very 
strong interest indeed to keep them low ; but if they fell 
equally on all sorts of property, and particularly if they 
were collected from large districts, or from counties, 
the local distributors would have comparatively but very 
feeble motives to reduce them, and they might be expec- 
ted to increase with great rapidity. 

It may be readily allowed, however, that the peculiar 
weight with which the poor's rates press upon land is 
essentially unfair. It is particularly hard upon some 
country parishes, where the births greatly exceed the 
deaths owing to the constant emigrations which are taking 
place to towns and manufactories, that under any circum- 
sta ices, a great portion of these emigrants should be re- 
turned upon them, when old, disabled, or out of workv 



Ckap.Xn. POPULATION. v 191 

Condition of the Poor, considered. 

Such parishes may be totally without the power of fur- 
nishing either work or support for all the persons born 
within their precincts. In fact, the same number would 
not have been born in them, unless these emigrations had 
taken place. And it is certainly hard therefore that par- 
ishes so circumstanced should be obliged to receive and 
maintain all who may return to them in distress. Yet 
in the present state of the country, the most pressing evil 
is not the weight upon the land, but the increasing pro- 
portion of paupers. And, as the equilization of the rates 
would certainly have a tendency to increase this propor- 
tion, I should be sorry to see such a measure introduced 
even if it were easily practicable, unless accompanied by 
some very strong and decisive limitations to the continu- 
ed increase of the rates so equalized. 

The other proposition of Mr. Curwen will in like man- 
ner, be found to afford no security against the increase of 
pauperism. We know perfectly well that the funds of 
the friendly societies, as they are at present constituted, 
though managed by the contributors themselves, are sel- 
dom distributed with the economy necessary to their per- 
manent efficiency; and in the national societies proposed, 
as a (considerable part of the fund would be derived 
from the poor's rates, there is certainly reason to expect 
that every question which could be influenced by the 
contributors would be determined on principles still more 
•indulgent and less economical. 

On this account it may well be doubted, whether it 
would ever be advisable to mix any public money, deriv- 
|ed from assessments, with the subscriptions of the labour- 



192 ESSAY ON Book. IK 

Different plans of improving the 

ing classes. The probahle result would be that in the case 
of any failure in the funds of such societies, arising from 
erroneous calculations and too liberal allowances, it would 
be expected that the whole of the deficiency should be 
made up by the assessments. And any rules which might 
have been made to limit the amount applied in this way 
would probably be but a feeble barrier against claims 
founded on a plan brought forward by the higher classes 
of society. 

Another strong objection to this sort of union of paro- 
chial and private contributions is, that from the first the ' 
members of such societies could not justl}'^ feel them- 
selves independent. If one half or one third of the funds 
were to be subscribed from the parish, they would stand 
upon a very different footing from the members of the 
present benefit-clubs. While so considerable a part of the 
allowances to which they might be entitled in sickness or 
in age would really come from the poor's rates, they would 
be apt to consider the plan as what, in many respects, it 
really would be, — only a different mode of raising the 
rates. If the system were to become general, the contri- 
butions of the labouring classes would have nearly the 
effects of a tax on labour, and such a tax has been gene- 
erally considered as more unfavourable to industry and 
production than most other taxes. 

The best part of Mr. Curwen's plan is that which pro- 
poses to give a credit to each contributor, in proportion 
to the amount of his contributions, and to make his allow- 
ances in sickness, and his annuity in old age, dependent 
upon this amonnt ; but this object could easily be accom* 



Chap. XU. POPULATION. 193 

-^ ■ — — — y 

Condition of the Poor, considered. 

plished without'the objectionable accompaniments. It is 
also very properly observed, that " want of employment 
" must furnish no claims on the society; for if this 
" excuse were to be admitted, it would most proba- 
" bly be attended with the most pernicious consequen- 
" ces." Yet it is at the same time rather rashly intima- 
ed, that employment must be found for all who are able 
to work; and, in another place, it is observed, that time- 
ly assistance would be afforded by these societies, with- 
out degradation, on all temporary occasions of suspended 
labour 

On the whole, vvlien it is considered that a large and 
probably increasing amount of poor's rates would be sub- 
scribed to these societies; that on this account their mem- 
bers could hardly be considered as independent of parish 
assistance ; and that the usual poor's rates would still re- 
main to be applied as they are now, without any propos- 
ed limitations, there is little hope that Mr. Curwen's plan 
would be successful in diminishing -the whole amount of 
the rates and the proportion of dependent poor. 

There are two errors respecting the management of 
the poor, into which the public seem inclined to fall at 
the present moment. The first is a disposition to attach too 
much importance to the effects of subscriptions from the 
poor themselves, without sufficient attention to the mode 
in which they are distributed. But the mode of distribution 
is much the more important point of the two ; and if this 
be radically bad, it is of little consequence in what man^ 
ner th^ subscriptions are raised, whether from the poor 
themselves or from any other quarter. If the labouring 



194 ESSAt ON Book. IV. 

Different plans of improving' the 

classes were universally to contribute what might at first 
appear a very ample proportion of their earnings, for 
their own support in sickness and in old age, when out of 
work, and when the family consisted of more than two 
children ; it is quite certain that the funds would become 
deficient. Such a mode of distribution implies a power 
of supporting a rapidly increasing and unlimited popula- 
tion on a limited territory, and must therefore terminate 
in aggravated poverty. Our present friendly societies or 
benefit-clubs aim at only limited objects which are suscep- 
tible of calculation ; yet many have failed, and many more 
it is understood are likely to fail from the insufficiency of 
their funds. If any society were to attempt to give much 
more extensive assistance to its members ; if it were to 
endeavour to imitate what is partially effected by the 
poor-laws, or to accomplish those objects which Condor- 
cet thought were within the power of proper calculations, 
the failure of its funds, however large at first, and from 
whatever sources derived, would be absolutely inevitable. 
In short it cannot be too often or too strongly impressed 
Opon the public, especially when any question for the im- 
provement of the condition of the poor is in agitation, 
that no application of knowledge and ingenuity to this 
subject, no efforts either of the poor or of the rich, or 
both in the form of contributions, or in any other way, 
can possibly place the labouring classes *of society in such 
a state as to enable them to marry generally at the same 
age in an old and fully peopled country as they may 
do with perfect safety and advantage in a new one. 
The other error towards which the public seems to Hi- 



€hap,XIL POPULATION 195 



Condition of the Poor, considered. 



cline at present is that of laying too much stress upon the 
employment of the poor. It seems to be thought that one 
of the principal causes ol the failure of our present system 
is the not having properly executed that part of the 43d of 
Elizabeth which enjoins the purchase of materials to set 
the poor to work. It is certainly desirable, on many ac- 
counts to employ the poor when it is practicable, though it 
will always be extremely difficult to make people work ac 
tively who are without the usual and most natural motives 
to such exertions ; and a system of coercion involves the 
necessity of placing great power in the hands of persons 
very likely to abuse it. Still however it is probable that 
the poor might be employed more than tliey have hither- 
to been in a way to be advantageous to their habits and 
morals, without being prejudicial in other respects. But 
we should fall into the grossest error if we were to im- 
agine that any essential part of the evils of the poor-laws, 
or of the difficulties under which we are at present la- 
bouring, has arisen, from not employing the poor; or if 
we were to suppose that any possible scheme for giving 
work to all who are out of employment can ever in any 
degree apply to the source of these evils and difficulties, 
so as to prevent their recurrence. In no conceiva- 
able case can be forced employment of the poor, though 
managed in the most judicious manner have any direct 
tendency to proportion more accurately the supply of la- 
bour to the natural demand for it. And without great care 
and caution it is obvious that it may have a pernicious ef- 
fect of an opposite kind. When for instance, from defi- 
cient demand or deficient capital, labour has a strong ten- 



196 ESSAY ON Book IV. 

Different plans of improving the 

dency to fall, if we keep it up to its usual price by creat- 
ing an artificial demand by public subscriptions or advan- 
ces from the government, we evidently prevent the popu- 
lation of the country from adjusting itself gradually to its 
diminished resources, and act much in the same manner 
as those, who would prevent the price of corn from ris- 
ing in a scarcity, which must necetrsarily j|terminate in in- 
creased distress. 

' Without then meaning to object to all plans for employ 
ing the poor, some of which, at certain times and with 
proper restrictions, may be useful as temporary measures, 
it is of great importance, in order to prevent ineffectual 
efforts and continued disappointments, to be fully aware 
that the permanent remedy which we are seeking cannot 
possibly come from this quarter. 

It may indeed be affirmed with the most perfect confi- 
dence that there is only one class of causes from which 
any approaches towards a remedy can be rationally expect 
ed ; and that consists of whatever has a tendency to in- 
crease the prudence and foresight of the labouring clas- 
ses. This is the touchstone to which every plan pro- 
posed for the improvement of the condition of the 
poor should be applied. If the plan be such as to co- 
operate with the lessons of Nature and Providence, and 
to encourage and promote habits /of prudence and fore- 
sight, essential and permanent benefit may be expected 
from it : if it has no tendency of this kind, it may possi- 
bly still be good as a temporary metisure, and on other 
^recounts, but we may be quite certain that it does not ap- 



Chap. Xll. POPULATION. 191 

Condition of the Poor, considered. 

ply to the source of the specific evil for which we are 
seeking a remedy. 

Of all the plans which have yet been proposed for the 
assistance of the labouring classes, the saving -banks, as 
far as they go, appear to be much the best, and the most 
likely, if they should become general, to effect a perma- 
nent improvement in the condition of the lower classes of 
society. By giving to each individual the full and entire 
benefit of his own industry and prudence, they are cal- 
culated greatly to strengthen the lessons of Nature and 
Providence ; and a young man, who had been saving from 
fourteen or fifteen with a view to marriage at four or five 
and twenty, or perhaps much earlier, would probably be 
induced to wait two or three years longer if the times 
were unfavorable ; if corn were high ; if wages were 
low ; or if the sum he had saved had been found by ex- 
perience not to be sufficient to furnish a tolerable securi- 
ty against want. A habit of saving a portion of present 
earnings for future contingencies can scarcely be suppos- 
ed to exist without general habits of prudence and fore- 
sight; and if the opportunity furnished by provident 
banks to individuals, of reaping the full benefit of saving, 
should render the practice general, it might rationally be 
expected that, under the varying resources of the coun- 
try, the population would be adjusted to the actual de- 
mand for labour, at the expense of less pain and less po- 
verty; and the remedy thus appears, so far as it goes, to 
apply to the very root of the evil. 

The great object of saving-banks, however, is to pre- 
vent want and dependence by enabling the poor to pro- 

Aa 



198 ESSAY ON J^ook. IK 

Different plans of improving the 

vide against contingencies themselves. And in a natural 
state of society, such institutions, with the aid of pri', aie 
charity well directed, would probably be all the means 
necessary to produce the best practicable effects. In tlie 
present state of things in this country the case is essen- 
tially different. With so very large a body of poor, ha- 
bitually dependent upon public funds, the in&titutiony of 
saving-banks cannot be considered in the light of substi- 
tutes for the poor's rates. The problem how to support 
those who are in want in such a manner as not continually 
to increase the proportion which they bear to the whole 
society will still remain to be solved. But if any plan should 
be adopted either of gradually abolishing or gradually re- 
ducing and fixing the amount of the poor's rates, saving- 
banks would essentially assist it, at the same time that 
they would receive a most powerful aid in return. 

In the actual state of things, they have been establish- 
ed at a pe.iod likely to be particularly unfavorable to 
them — a period of very general distress, and of the most 
extensive parochial assistance; and the success which 
has attended them, even under these disadvantages, seems 
dearly to shew, that in a period of prosperity and good 
wages, combined with a prospect of diminished parochial 
assistance, they might spread very extensively, and have 
a considerable effect on the general habits of the people. 

With a view to give them greater encouragement at 
the present moment, an act has been passed allowing per- 
sons to receive parish assistance at the discretion of the 
juslices, although they may have funds of their own un- 
^ea: a certain amount in a saving bank. But this is pro* 



Clutp. XII. POPULATION. 199 

Condition of the Poor, considered. 

bably a short-sighted policy. It is sacrificing the prin- 
ciple for which saving banks are established, to obtain 
an advantage which, on this very accoant, will be compa- 
ratively of little value. We wish to teach the labouring 
classes to rely more upon their own exertions and resour- 
ces, as tbe only way of really improving their condition ; 
yet we reward their saving by making them still depend- 
ent upon that very species of assistance which it is our 
object that they should avoid The progress of saving- 
banks under such a regulation will be but an equivocal 
and uncertain symptom of good ; whereas without such 
a regulation every step would tell, every fresh deposition 
would prove, the growth of a desire to become indepen- 
dent of parish assistance ; and both the great extension 
of the friendly societies, and the success of the saving- 
banks in proportion to the time they have been establish- 
ed, clearly shew that much progress might be expected 
in these institutions under favorable circumstance* with- 
out resorting to a measure which is evidently calculated 
to sacrifice the end to the means. 

With regard to the plans which have been talked of 
for reducing and limiting the poor's rates, they are cer- 
tainly of a kind to apply to the root of the evil ; but they 
would be obviously unjust without a formal retraction of 
the right of the poor to support ; and for many years they 
would unquestionably be much more harsh in their ope- 
ration than the plan of abolition which I have ventured 
to propose in a preceding chapter. At the same time, if 
it be thought that this country cannot entirely get rid of 
a system which has been so long interwoven in its frame. 



20a ESSAY ON POPULATION Book. IV. 

Different plans of improving the Condition, &c. 

a limitation of the amount of the poor's rates, or rather 
of their proportion to the wealth and population of the 
country, which would be more rational and just, accom- 
panied with a very full and fair notice of the nature of 
the change to be made, might be productive of essential 
benefit, and do much towards improving the habits and 
happiness of the poor. 



APPENDIX. 



1817. 



Since the publication of the last edition of this Essay 
in 1807, two Works have appeared, the avowed objects 
of which are directly to oppose its principles and conclusi- 
ons. These are the Principles of Population and Produc- 
tion by Mr. Wayland : and an Inquiry into tlie Principle 
of Population^ by Mr. James Grahame. 

I would willingly leave the question as it at present 
stands to the judgment of the public, without any attempt 
on my part to influence it further by a more particular 
reply ; but as I professed my readiness to enter into the 
discussion of any serious objections to my principles and 
conclusions, which were brought forward in a spirit of 
candour and truth ; and as one at least of the publica- 
tious above mentioned may be so characterized, and the 
other is by no means deficient in personal respect ; I am 
induced shortly to notice them. 

I should not however have thought it necessary to ar?- 
vert to Mr. Grahame's publication, which is a slight work 
without any very distinct object in view, if it did not af- 
ford some strange specimens of misrepresentation, which 
it may be useful to point out. 

Mr. Grahnme in his second chapter, speaking of the 
tendency exhibited by the law of human increase to a re- 
dundance of population, observes, that some pliilosophers 



202 APPENDIX. 

have considered this tendency as a mark of the foresight 
of nature, which has thus provided a ready supply for 
the waste of life occasioned by human vices and pas- 
sions, while " others, of whom Mr, Malthus is the lea- 
" der, regard the vices and follies of human nature, and 
" their various products, famine disease and war, as be- 
" nevolent remedies by which nature has enabled human 
" beings to correct the disorders that would arise from 
" that redundance of population which the unrestrained 
" operation of her laws would create."* 

These are the opinions imputed to me and the philoso- 
phers with whom I am associated. If the imputation 
were just, we have certainly on many accounts great rea- 
son to be ashamed of ourselves. For what are we made 
to say ? In the first place, we are stated to assert that/a- 
mine is a benevolent remedy for want of food^ as redun- 
dance of population admits of no other interpretation 
than that of a people ill supplied with the means of sub- 
sistence, and consequently the benevolent remedy of fa- 
mine here noticed can only apply to the disorders arising 
from scarcity of food. 

Secondly ; we are said to affirm that nature enables 
human beings by means of diseases to correct the 
disorders that would arise from a redundance of popula- 
tion; — that is, that mankind willingly and purposely create 
diseases, with a view to prevent those diseases which are 
the necessary consequence of a redundant population, and 
are not worse or more mortal than the means of preven- 
tion. 

And thirdly, it is imputed to us generally, that we con- 
sider the vices and follies of mankind as benevolent reme- 

*Pas:e. 100. 



APPENDIX. 203 

dies for the disorders arising from a redundant population; 
and it follows as a matter of course that these vices 
ought to be encouraged rather than reprobated. 

It would not be easy to compress in so small a coinpass 
ft greater quantity of absurdity, inconsistency, and un- 
founded assertion. 

The two first imputations may perhaps be peculiar to 
Mr. Grahame; and protection from them may be found 
in their gross absurdity and inconsistency. With regard 
to the third, it must be allowed that it has not the merit 
of novelty. Although it is scarcely less absurd than the 
two others, and has been shewn to be an opinion no 
where to be found in the Essay, nor legitimately to be in- 
ferred from any part of it, it has been continually repeat- 
ed in various quarters for fourteen years, and now appears 
in the pages of Mr. Grahame. For the last time I 
will now notice it; and should it still continue to be 
brought forward, I think I may be fairly excused from 
paying the slightest further attention either to the imputa- 
tion itself, or to those who advance it. 

If I had merely stated that the tendency of the human 
race to increase faster than the means of subsistence, 
was kept to a level with these means by some or other of 
4,he forms of vice and misery, and that these evils were 
absolutely unavoidable, and incapable of being diminished 
byjany human efforts; still I could not with any semblance 
of justice be accused of considering vice and misery as 
the remedies of these evils, instead of the very evils them- 
selves As well nearly might I be open to Mr. Gra- 
hame's imputations of considering the famme and disease 
necessarily arising from a scarcity of food as a benevo- 
lent remedy for the evils which this scarcity occasions. 

But I have not so stated the proposition. I have not 



^04 APPENDIX, 

considered the evils of vice and misery arising from a 
redundant population as unavoidable, and incapable of be 
ing^diminished. On the contrary I have pointed out a mode 
by which these evils may be removed or mitigated by re- 
moving or mitigating their cause. I have endeavoured to 
shew that this may be done consistently with human vir- 
tue and happiness, I have never considered any possible 
increase of population as an evil, except as far as it might 
increase the proportion of vice and misery. Vice and mis- 
ery, and these alone, are the evils wJ»ich it has been my 
great object to contend against, I have expressly pro- 
posed moral restraint as their rational and proper remedy 
and whether the remedy be good or bad, inadequate or inad- 
equate, the proposal itself, and the stress which [ have laid 
upon it, is an incontrovertible proof that I never can have 
considered vice and misery as themselves remedies. 

But not only does the general tenour of my work, and 
the specific object of the latter pan of it, clearly shew 
that I do no consider vice and misery as remedies ; but 
particular passages in various parts of it are so distinct 
on the subject, as not to admit of being misunderstood 
but by the most perverse blindness. 

It is therefore quite inconceivable that any writer with 
the slightest pretension to respectability should venture 
to bring forward such imputations ; and it must be allow- 
ed to shew either such a degree of ignorance, or su<,rh a 
total want of candoi^r, as utterly; to disqualify him for 
the discussion of such subjects. 

But Mr. Grahame's misrepresentations are not confined 
to the passage above referred to. In his Introduction he 
observes that, in order to check a redundant population, 
the evils of which I consider as much nearer than Mr. 
Wallacej I '<• recommend immediate recourse to human 



APPENDIX. 505 

eftbrts, to the restraints prescribed by Condorcet, for the 
correction or mitigation of the evil."* This is an assert io» 
entircl}' without foundation. 1 hav^e never adverted to 
the clieck suggested by Condorcet without the most mark- 
ed disapprobation. Indeed I sl>ould always particularly 
reprobate any artificial and unnatural modes of checkin«»- 
))Opulation, both on account of their immorality and their 
tendency to remove a necessary stimulus to industry. If it 
were possible for each married couple to limit by a wish 
the mumber of their-childrcn, there is certainly reason to 
fear that the indolence of the human race would be very 
greatly increased ; and that neither the population of in- 
dividual countries, nor of the whole earth, would exet 
leach its natural and proper extent. But the restraints 
whicli 1 have recommended are quite of a different char- 
acter. They are not only ]iointed out by reason and sanc- 
tioned by religion, but tend in the most marked manner 
to stimulate industry. It is not easy to conceive a more 
powerful encouragement to exertion and good conduct 
than the looking lorward to marriage as a state peculiarly 
desirable ; but only to be enjoyed in comfort, by the ac- 
quisition of habits of industry, economy and prudence. 
And it is in this light that I have always wished to place 
it.t 

In speaking of the poor-laAvs in this country, and of 
their tendency (particularly as they have been lately ad- 
ministered) to eradicate jail remaining spirit of indepen- 
dence among our peasantry, I observed that, "hard as it 
" may appear in individual instances, dependent poverty 



*P. IS. 
t See vol. ii., p. 241, of 4th. edit; p. 493 of the qaarto edit.; and 
yol. ii., p 241, edition of 1807. 

Eb 



206 APPENDIX. 

" ought to be held dsigraceful ;" by which of course f 
only riiean that such a proper degree of pride as will 
induce a labouring man to make great exertions, as in 
Scotland, in order to prevent himself or his nearest rt la- 
tions from falhng upon the parish, is very desirable, with 
a view to the happiness of the lower classes of society. 
The interpretation which Mr. Grahame gives to this pas- 
sage is, that the rich " are so to imbitter the pressure of 
" indigence by the stings of contumely, that men may be 
'^ driven by their pride to prefer even the refuge of des- 
" pair to the condition of dependence ! ! "* — a curious 
specimen of misrepresentation and exaggeration. 

I have written a chapter expressly on the practical di- 
rection of our charity ; and in detached passages else- 
where have paid a just tribute to the exalted virtue of be- 
nevolence. To those who have read these parts of my 
work, and have attended to the general tone and spirit of 
the whole, I willingly appeal, if they are but tolera- 
bly candid, against these charges of Mr. Grahame, which 
intimate that I would root out the virtues of charity and 
benevolence, vvithout regard to the exaltation which they 
bestow on the moral dignity of our nature ; and that in 
my view the " rich are required only to harden their 
hearts against calamity, and to prevent the charitable 
Visitings of their nature from keeping alive in them that 
virtue which is often the only moral link between them 
and their fellow-mortals, "t It is not easy to suppose that 
Mr. Grahame can have read the chapter to which I al- 
lude, as both the letter and spirit of it contradict, in the 
most express and remarkable manner, the imputations 
conveyed in the above passages. 
' ' ■- 

*P. 236 llbiiJ 



APPENDIX. 201 

These are a iew specimens of Mr. Grahame's misre- 
presentations, which might easily be multiplied; but on 
this subject I will only further remark that it shews no 
inconsiderable want of candour to continue attacking and 
dwelling upon passages^ which have ceased to form a 
part of the work controverted. And this Mr. Grahame 
has done in more instances than one, although he could 
hardy fail to know that he was combating expressions 
and passages which I have seen reason to alter or ex- 
puiige. 

I really should not have thought it worth Avhile to no- 
tice these misrepresentations o( Mr. Grahame, if in spite 
of them, the style and tone of kis publication had not ap- 
peared to me to be entitled to more respect than most of 
my opponents. 

With regard to the substance and aim of Mr. Grahame's 
work, it seems to be intended to shew that emigration is 
the remedy provided by nature for a redundant population; 
and that if this remedy cannot be adequately applied, 
there is no other that can be proposed which will not lead 
to consequences worse than the evil itself. These are 
two points which I have considered at length in the Essay 
and it cannot be necessary to repeat any of the arguments 
here. Emigration if it could be freely used, has been shewn 
to be a resource, which could not be of long duration. 
It cannot therefore under any circumstances be consider- 
ed as an adequate remedy. The latter position is a 
matter of opinion, and may rationally be held by any 
person who sees reason to think it well founded. It ap- 
pears to me, I confess, that experience most decidedly 
contradicts it ; but to those who think otherwise, there is 
nothing more to be said, than that they are bound in con- 
sistency to acquiesce in the necessary consequences of 
their opinion. These consequences are, that the peverty 



208 APPENDIX 

and wretchedness arising from a redundant population, 
or, in other words, from very low wages and want of em- 
ployment, are absolutely irremediable, and must be con- 
tinually increasing as the population of the earth proceeds; 
and that all the efforts of legislative wisdom and private 
charity, though they may afford a wholesome and benefi- 
cial exercise of human virtue and may occasionally alter 
the distribution and vary the pressure of human misery 
can do absolutely nothing towards diminishing the general 
amount or checking the increasing weight of this pres- 
sure. 

Mr. Weyland's work is of a much more^elaborate descrip 
iion than that of Mr. Grahame. It has also a very difinite 
object in view : and although, when he enters into the de- 
tails of his subject, he is compelled entirely to agree with 
me respecting the checks which practically keep down 
population to the level of the means of subsistence, and 
has not in fact given a single reason for the slow progress 
of population, in the advanced stages of society, that does 
not clearly and incontrovertibly come under the heads of 
moral restraint, vice or misery ; yet it must be allowed 
that he sets out with a bold and distinct denial of my pre- 
mises, aiid finishes, as he ought to do from such a be- 
ginning, by drawing the most opposite conclusions. 

After stating fairly my main propositions and adverting 
to the conclusion which I have drawn from them, Mr. 
Weyland says, " Granting the premises, it is indeed ob- 
** vious thai this conclusion is undeniable."* 

I desire no other concession than this ; and if my pre- 
mises can be shewn to rest on unsolid foundations, I will 



•Principles of Population and Production, p. IJ. 



APPENDIX. iOQ 

most readily give up the inferences I have drawn from 
them. 

To determine the point here at issue it cannot be neces- 
sary for me to repeat the proofs of these premises de- 
rived botli from theory and experience, which have al- 
ready so fully been brought forward. It has been allowed 
that they have been stated with tolerable clearness; and it is 
known that many persons have considered them as unas- 
sailable, who still refuse to admit the consequences to 
which they appeal^ to lead. All that can be required 
therefore on the present occasion is to examine the vali- 
dity of the objections to these premises brought forward 
by Mr. Weyland. 

Mr. Weyland observes, " that the origin of what are 
" conceived to be the mistakes and false reasonings, 
" with respect to the pnnciple of population, appears 
" to be the assumption of a tendency to increase in the 
" human species, the quickest that can be proved possible 
" in any particular state of society, as that which is na- 
" tural and theoretically possible in all; and the charac- 
" terizing of every cause which tends to prevent such 
'' quickest possible rate as checks to the natural and spon- 
" taneous tendency of population to increase ; but as 
" checks evidently insufficient to stem the progress of an 
" overwhelming torrent. This seems as eligible a mode 
" of reasoning, as if one were to assume the height of the 
" Irish giant as the natural standard of the stature of man 
*' and to call every reason, which may be suggested as 
•' likely to prevent the generality of men from reaching 
" it, checks to their growth."* 

Mr. Weyland has here most unhappily chosen his 11- 



T. 17, 



tli APPENDIX. 

lustratioTi, as it is in no respect applicable to tlie case.—-. 
In order to illustrate the different rates at which popula- 
tion increases in different countries, by the different 
heights of men, the following comparison and inference, 
would be much more to the purpose. 

If in a particular country we observed that all the peo- 
ple had weights of different sizes upon their heads, and 
that invariably each individual was tall or short in propor- 
tion to the smallness or greatness of the pressure upon 
him; that every person was observed to grow when the 
weight he carried was either removed or diminished, and 
that the few among the whole people, who were exempt- 
ed from this burden, were very decidedly taller than the 
rest; would it not be be quite justifiable to infer, that the 
weights which the people carried were the cause of their 
being in general so short ; and that the height of those 
without weight might fairly be considered as the standard 
to whicK it might be expected that the great mass would 
arrive, if their growth were unrestricted ? 

For what is it in fact, which we really observe with 
regard to the different rates of increase in different coun- 
tries ? Do we not see that, in almost every state to which 
we can direct our attention, the natural tendency to in- 
crease is repressed by the difficulty which the mass of 
the people find in procuring an ample portion of the ne- 
cessaries of life, which shews itself more immediately 
in some or other of the forms of moral restraint, vice 
and misery ? Do we not see that invariably the rates of 
increase are fast or slow, according as the pressure of 
these checks is light or heavy ; and that in consequencB 
Spain increases at one rate, France at another, England 
at a third, Ireland at a fourth, parts of R ussia at a fifth, 
parts of Spanish America at a sixth, and the United States 



APPENDIX. «lt 

of North America at a seventh ? Do we not see that 



1 



whenever the resources of any country increase, so as to 
create a great demand for labour and give the lower clas- 
ses of society a greater command over the necessaries of 
life, the population of such country, though it might be- 
fore have been stationary or proceeding very slowly, be- 
gins immediately to make a start forwards ? And do we 
not see that in those few countries or districts of coun- 
tries, where the pressure arising from the difficulty of 
procuring the necessaries and conveniences of life is al- 
most entirely removed, and where in consequence the 
checks to early marriages are very few, and large fami- 
lies are maintained with perfect facility, the rate at which 
the population increases is always the greatest? 

And when to these broad and glaring facts we add, 
that neither theory nor experience will justify us in be- 
lieving, either that the passion between the sexes, or the 
natural prolificness of women, diminishes in the progress 
of society ; when we further consider that the climate of 
the United States of America is not particularly healthy, 
and that the qualities which mainly distinguish it from 
other countries, are its rapid production and distribution 
of the means of subsistence; is not the induction as le- 
gitimate and correct as possible, that the varying weight 
of the difficulties attending the maintenance of families, 
and the moral restraint, vice and misery which these dif- 
ficulties necessarily generate, are the causes of the vary- 
ing rates of increase observable in different countries ; 
and that so far from having any reason to consider the 
American rate of increase as peculiar, unnatural and gi- 
gantic, we are bound by every law of induction and ana- 
logy to conclude that there is scarcely a state in Europe 
where, if the marriages were as early, the meaas o( 



212 APPENDIX. 

maintaining large families as ample, and the employments 
of the labouring classes as healthy, the rate ^f increase 
would not be as rapid, and in some cases, I havie no doubt, 
even more rapid, than in the United States of America? 

Another of Mr. Weyland's curious illustrations is the 
following : — He says that the physical teiidency of a peo- 
ple in a comn^ercial and manufacturing state to double 
their number in twenty-five years is "as absolutely gone 
" as the tendency of a bean to shoot up further into the 
" air after it has arrived at its full growth ;" and that to 
assume such a tendency is to build a theory upon a mere 
shadow, "which when brought to the test, is directly at 
" variance with experience of the fact ; and as unsafe to 
*' act upon, as would be that of a general who should as- 
" sume the force of a musket shot to be double its actual 
" range, and then should calculate uponihe death of all 
" his enemies as soon as he had drawn up his own men 
" for battle within this line of assumed efficiency."* 

Now I am not in the least aware who it is that has as- 
sumed the actual range of the shot, or the actual progress 
of population in different countries, as very different 
from Avhat it is observed to be ; and therefore cannot see 
how the illustration, as brought forward by Mr. Weyland, 
applies, or how I can be said to resemble his miscalcula- 
ting general. What I have really done is this, (if he will 
allow me the use of his own metaphor) having observed 
that the range of musket balls, projected from similar 
barrels and with the same quantity of powder of the same 
strength, was, under different circumstances, very differ- 
ent, I applied myself to consider what these circumstan- 
ces were ; and having found that tlie range of each ball 

p. 126. 



APPENDIX. aas 

was greater or less in proportion to the smaller or greater 
number of the obstacles which it met with in its course, or 
the rarity or density of the medium through which it passed* 
I was led to infer tliat the variety of range observed was 
owing to these obstacles ; and I consequently thought it 
a more correct and legitimate conclusion, and one more 
consonant both to theory and experience, to say that the 
natural tendency to a range of a certain extent, or the 
force impressed upon the hall, was always the same, and 
the actual range, whether long or short, only altered by 
external resistance ; than to conclude that the different 
distances to which the balls reach must proceed from 
some mysterious change in the natural tendency of each 
bullet at different times, although no observable difference 
could be noticed either in the barrel or the charge. 

I leave Mr. Weyland to determine which would be the 
conclusion of the natural philosopher, who was observ- 
ing the different velocities and ranges of projectiles pas- 
sing through resisting media ; and I do not se e why the 
moral and political philosopher should proceed upon 
principles so totally opposite. 

But the only arguments of Mr. Weyland against the 
natural tendency of the human race to increase faster than 
the means of subsistence, are a few of these illustrations 
which he has so unhappily applied, together with the 
acknowledged fact, that countries under different circum- 
stances and in different stages of their progress, do really 
increase at very different rates. 

Without dwelling therefore longer on such illustrations, 
it may be observed, with regard to the fact of the differ- 
ent rates of increase in different countries, that as long as 
it is a law of our nature that man cannot live without 
food, these different rates are as absolutely and strictly 

Cc 



2U APPENDIX. 

<m&essary as the differences in the power of prodacing 
food in countries more or less exhausted ; and that to in- 
fer from these different rates of increase, as they are ac- 
tually found to take place, that "population has a nature^ 
*' tendency to keep within the powers of the soil to afford 
*' it subsistence in every gradation through which society 
*' passes," is just as rational as to infer that every man 
ha«5 a natural tendency to remain in prison who is neces- 
sarily confined to it by four strong walls ; or that the 
pine of the crowded Norwegian forest has no natural 
tendency to shoot out lateral branches, because there is 
BO foom for their growth. And yet this is Mr. Wey- 
land's first and grand proposition, on which the whole of 
his work turns!! ! 

But though Mr. Weyland has not proved, or approach- 
ed towards proving, that the natural tendency of popu- 
lation to increase is not unlimited; though he has not ad- 
vanced a single reason to make it appear probable that a 
thousand millions would not be doubled in twenty-five 
years just as easily as a thousand, if moral restraint, vice 
and misery, were equally removed in both cases ; yet 
there is one part of his argument, which undoubtedly 
might, under certain circumstances, be true ; and if true, 
though it would in no respect impeach the premises of 
the Essay, it would essentially affect some of its conclu^ 
sions. 

The argument may be stated shortly thus — that the na- 
tural division of labour arising from a very advanced 
state of society, particularly in countries where the land 
Is rich, and great improvements have taken place in agri- 
culture, might throw so large a portion of the people in- 
to towns, and engage so many in unhealthy oceupationSo 



APPENDIX. 21 S 

that the immediate checks to population might be too 
powerful to he overcome even by an abundance of food. 

It is admitted that this is a possible case ; and, fore- 
seeing this possibility, I provided lor it in the terms in 
which the second proposition of the Essay was enmicia- 
ted. 

The only practical question then worth attending: to 
between me and Mr. Weyland is, whether cases of the 
kind above stated are to be considered in the light in 
which I have considered them in the Essay, as exceptions 
of very rare occurrence, or in the light in which Mr. 
Weyland has considered them, as a state of things' natu- 
rally accompanying every stage in the progress of im« 
provement. On either supposition population would still 
be repressed by some or other of the forms of moral re- 
straint, vice or misery ; but the moral and political con- 
clusions, in the actual state of almost all countries, would 
be essentially different. On the one supposition moral 
restraint would, except in a few cases of the rarest oc- 
currence, be one of the most useful and necessary of vir- 
tues — and on the other, it would be one of the most use- 
less and unnecessary. 

This question can only be determined by an appeal to 
experience. Mr. Weyland is always ready to refer to 
the state of this country ; and, in fact, may be said al- 
most to have built his system upon the peculiar policy of 
a single state. But the reference in this case will entire- 
ly contradict his theory. He has brought forward some 
elaborate calculations to sliew the extreme difficulty with 
which the birtl>s of the country supply the demands of 
the towns and manufactories. In looking over them, the 
reader, without other information, would be disposed to 
ieel coHsiderable alarm at the prospect of depopulation 



ai6 APPENDIX. 

impending over the country ; or at least he would be coD" 
vinced that we were within a hair's breadth of that for- 
midable point of non-reproduction, at which, according to 
Mr. Weyland, the population naturally comes to a full 
stop before the means of subsistence cease to be pro- 
gressive. 

These calculations were certainly as applicable twen- 
ty years ago as they are now ; and indeed they are chief- 
ly founded on observations which were made at a great- 
er distance of time than the period here noticed. But 
what has happened since .'' In spite of the enlargement 
of all our towns ; in spite of the most rapid increase of 
manufactories, and of the proportion of people employed 
in them ; in spite of the most extraordinary and unusual 
demands for the army and navy ; in short, in spite of a 
state of things which according to Mr. Weyland's theory, 
ought to have brought us long since to the point of non- 
reproduction, the population of the country has advanc- 
ed at a rate more rapid than was ever known at any peri- 
od of its history. During the ten years from 1800 to 1811 
as I have mentioned in a former part of this work, the 
population of this country (even after making an allow- 
ance for the presumed deficiency of the returns in the first 
enumeration) increased at a rate which would double its 
number in fifty-five years. 

This fact appears to me at once a full and complete re- 
futation of the doctrine, that, as society advances, the in- 
creased indisposition to marriage and increased mortality in 
great towns and manufactories always overcome the prin- 
ciple of increase ; and that in the language of Mr. Wey- 
land, " population, so far from having an inconvenient 
" tendency uniformly to press against the means of sub- 
" sistence becomes by degrees very slow in overtaking^ 
" those means." 



APPENDIX. 217 

With this acknowledged and glaring fact before him, 
and with the most striking evidences staring him in the 
face, that even, during this period of rapid increase, thou- 
sands both in the country and towns were prevented from 
marrying so early as they would have done, if they had 
possessed sufficient means of supporting a family indepen- 
dently of parish relief, it is quite inconceivable how a 
man of sense could bewilder himself m such a maze of 
futile calculations, and come to a conclusion so diametri- 
cally opposite to experience. 

The fact already noticed, as it applies to the most ad- 
vanced stage of society known in Europe, and proves 
incontrovertibly, that the actual checks to population, 
even in the most improved countries, arise principally 
from an insufficiency of subsistenc*", and soon yield to in- 
creased resources, notwithstanding the increase of towns 
and manufactories, may I think fairly be considered as 
quite decisive of the question at issue. 

But in treating of so general and extensive a subject 
as the Principle of Population, it would surely not be 
just to take our examples and illustrations only from a sin- 
gle state. And in looking at the other countries Mr. 
Weyland's doctrine on population is if possible, still more 
completely contradicted. Where, I would ask, are the 
great towns and manufactories in Switzerland, Norway 
and Sweden, which are to act as the graves of mankind y 
and to prevent the possibility of a redundant population ? 
In Sweden the proportion of the people living in the 
country is to those who live in town as 13 to 1 ; in En- 
gland this proportion is ab6ut 2 to 1 ; and yet England 
increases much faster than Sweden. How is this to be 
reconciled with the doctrine that the progress of civiliza- 
iion and improvement is always accompanied by a corres- 



ms APPENDIX. 

pondent abatemeet in the natural tendency of population 
to increase ? Norway Sweden and Switzerland have not 
on the whole been ill governed ; but where are the neces- 
sary " anticipating alterations," which according to Mr. 
Weyland, arise in every society as the powers ot the 
soil diminish, and " render so many persons miwilling to 
*^ marry, and so many more, who do marry, incapable of 
*' reproducing their own numbers, and of replacing ihe 
" deficiency in the remainder?"* What is it ihat in 
these countries indisposes people to marry, but the abso- 
lute hoplessness of being able to support their families • 
What is it that renders many more who do marry incapa- 
pable of reproducing their own numbers^ by the diseases 
generated by excessive poverty — by an insufficient supply 
of the necessaries of life ? Can any man of reflection look 
at these and many of the other countries of Europe, and 
then venture to state that there is no moral reason for re- 
pressing the inclination to early marriages ; when it can- 
not be denied that the alternative of not repressing it 
must necessarily and unavoidably be premature mortality 
from excessive poverty ? And is it possible to know that 
in few or none of the countries of Europe the wages of 
labour, determined in the common way by the supply 
and demand, can support in health large families ; and 
yet assert that population does not press against the means 
of subsistence, and that "the evils of a redundant popula- 
*'• tion can never be necessarily felt by a country till it is 
*' actually peopled up to the full capacity of its resour- 
«' ces?"t 

Mr. Weyland really appears to have dictated his book 
with his eyes blindfolded and his ears stopped. I have a 

•P. 124. tP- 123. 



APPENDIX. 219 

great respect for his character and intentions ; but I must 
say thai it has never been my fortune to meet with a the«- 
ory so uniforaily contradicted by experience. The very 
slightest glance at the difiercnt countries of Europe shews 
with a force amounting to demonstration, that to all practi- 
cal purposes the wa^rai tendency of population to increase 
may be considered as a given quantity ; and that the ac- 
tual increase is regulated by the varying resources of 
each country for the employment and maintenance of la^ 
hour, in whatever stage of its progress it may be, whe- 
ther it is agricultural or manufacturing, whether it has 
few or many towns. Of course this actual increase, of 
the actual limits of population, must always be far short 
of the utmost powers of the earth to produce food-, first 
because we never can rationally suppose that the human 
skill and industry actually exerted are directed in ihe 
best possible manner towards the production of food; and 
secondly, because as 1 have stated more particularly in a 
former part of this work, the greatest production of food 
which the powers of the earth would admit cannot possi- 
bly take place under a system of private property. But 
this acknowledged truth obviously affects only the actual 
quantity of food and the actual number of people, and 
has not the most distant relation to the question respect- 
ing the natural tendency o( population to increase beyond 
the power of the earth to produce food for it. 

The observations already made are sufficient to shew 
that the four main propositions of Mr. Weyland, which de- 
pend upon the first, are quite unsupported by any appear- 
ances in the state of human society, as it is known to us in 
the countries with which we are acquainted. The last of 
these four propositions is the following : — "This tenden- 
cy" (meaning the natural tendency of population to keep 



220 APPENDIX. 

within the powers of' the soil to aflford it subsistence) 
" will have its complete operation so as constantly to 
" maintain the people in comfort and plenty in propor- 
" tion as religion, morality, rational liberty and security 
" of person and property approach the attainment of a 
*' perfect influence."* 

In the morality here noticed, moral or prudential re- 
straint from marriage is not included ; and so understood, 
I have no hesitation in saying that this proposition appears 
to me more directly to contradict the observed laws of 
nature than to assert that Norway might easily grow food 
for a thousand millions of inhabitants. I trust that I am 
disposed to attach as much importance to the effects of 
morality and religion on the happiness of society, even as 
Mr. Weyland ; but among the moral duties, I certainly 
include a restraint upon the inclination to an early mar- 
riage when there is no reasonable prospect of mainte- 
nance for a family ; and unless this species of virtuous 
self-denial be included in morality, I am quite at issue 
with Mr. Weyland ; and so distinctly deny his proposi- 
tion as to say that no degree of religion and morality, no 
degree oi rational liberty and security of person and pro- 
perty, can, under the existing laws of nature, place the 
lower classes of society in a state of comfort and plen- 

ty. 

With regard to Mr. Weyland's fifth and last proposi- 
tion,t I have already answered it in a note which I have 
added in the present edition, to the last chapter of the 
third book,| and will only observe here that an illustra- 
tion to shew the precedence of population to food, which 

*C. iii. p. 21. tld. p. 22. {P. 245 et seq. 



APPENDIX. 221 

I believe was first brought forward by an anonymous 
writer, and appears so to have pleased Mr. Grahame as 
to induce him to repeat it twice, is one which I would 
willingly take to prove the very opposite doctrine to 
(hat which it was meant to support. The apprehension 
that an increasing population would starve* unless a 
previous increase of food were procured for it, has been 
ridiculed by comparing it with the apprehension that in- 
creasing numbers would be obliged to go naked unless 
a previous increase of clothes sffould precede their births. 
Now however well or ill-founded may be our apprehen- 
sions in the former case, they are certainly quite justifia- 
ble in the4atter; at least society has always acted as if 
it thought so. In the course of the next twentv-four 
hours there will be about 800 children born in England 
and Wales; and I will venture to say that there are not 
ten out of the whole number that come at the expected 
time, for whom cloths are not prepared before their 
births. It is said to be dangerous to meddle with edged 
tools which we do not know how to handle ; and it is 
equally dangerous to meddle with illustrations which we 
do not know how to apply, and which may^tend to prove 
exactly the reverse of what we wish. 

On Mr. Weyland's theory it will not be necessary fur- 
ther to enlarge. With regard to the practical conclusions 
which he has drawn from it in our own country, they are 
such as might be expected from the nature of the premi- 
ses. If population, instead of having a tendency to pressi 
against the means of subsistence, becomes by degrees 
very slow in overtaking them, Mr. Weyland's inference 



•This I have never said; I have only said that their condition would 
be deteriorated, which is strictly true. 

Dr» 



g22 APPENDIX. 

that we ought to encourage the increase of the labouring 
classes by abundant parochial assistence to families, might 
perhaps be maintainefl. But if his premises be entirely 
wrong, while his conclusions are still acted upon, the con- 
sequence must be, that universal system of unnecessary 
pauperism and dependence which we now so much de-t 
plore. Already above I ot the population of England 
and Wales are regularly dependent upon parish relief; 
and if the system which Mr. Weyland recommends, 
and which has been so fbnerally adopted in the midland 
counties, should extend itself over the whole kingdoiii, 
:there is really no saying to what height the level of pau- 
perism may rise. While the system of making an allow- 
ance from the parish for every child above two is confin- 
ed to the labourers in agriculture, whom Mr. Weyland con- 
siders as the breeders of the country, it is essentially un- 
just, as it lowers without compensation the wages of the 
manufacturer and artificer: and when it shall become just 
by including the whole of the working classes, what a 
dreadful picture does it present ! what a scene of equal- 
ity, indolence, rags and dependence, among one-half or 
three-fourths of the society ! Under such a system to ex- 
pect any essential benefit from saving hanks or any other 
institutions to promote industry and economy is perfectly 
preposterous, W hen the wages of labour are reduced 
to the level to which this system tends, there will be nei- 
ther power nor motive to save. 

Mr. Weyland strangely attributes much of the wealth 
and prosperity of England to the cheap population which 
it raises by means of the poor-laws ; and seems to think 
that, if labour had been allowed to settle at its natural 
rate, and all workmen had been paid in proportion to 
their skill and industry, whether with or without families. 



APPENDIX. 9,2a 

we slioukl never have attained that commercial and man- 
ufacturing ascendency by which we have been so emi- 
nently distinguished. 

A practical refutation of so ill-founded an opinion may 
be seen ia the state of Scotland, which in prop4)rtion to 
its naiuial resources has certainly increased in agriculture 
manufactures and commerce, during the last fifty years, 
still more rapidly than England although it may fairly be 
said to have been essentially without poor-laws. 

It is not easy to determine what is the price of labour 
most favourable to the progress of wealth. It is certain- 
ly conceivable that it mny be too high for tlie prosperity 
of foreign commerce. But I believe it is much more 
frequently too low, and I doubt if there has ever been an 
instance in any country of very great prosperity in foreign 
commerce, where the working classes have not had good 
money wages. It is impossible to sell very largely with- 
out being able to buy very largely ; and no country can 
buy very largely in which the working classes are not 
in such a state as to be able to purchase foreign commo- 
dities. 

But nothing tends to place the lower classes of society 
in this state so much as a demand for labour which is al- 
lowed to take its natural course, and which therefore pays 
the unmarried man and the man with a family at the same 
rate ; and consequently gives at once to a very large mass 
of the working classes the power of purchasing foreign 
articles of consumption, and of paying taxes on luxuries 
to no inconsiderable extent. While, on the other band, 
nothing would tend so effectually to destroy the power of 
the working classes of society to purchase either home 
manufactures or foreign articles of consumption, or to 
pay taxes on luxuries^ as the practice of doling out to 



m.4: APPENDIX. 

each member of a family an allowance, m the shape of 
wages and parish relief combined, just sufficient, or only 
a very little more than to furnish them with the merp 
food necessary for their maintenance. 

To shew that in looking forward to such an increas- 
ed operation of prudential restraint as would greatly 
improve the condition of the poor, it is not necessary 
to suppose extravagant and impossible wages as Mr. 
Weyland seems to think, I will refer to the proposition 
of a practical man on the subject of the price of labour; 
and certainly much would bfe done, if this proposition 
could be realized, though it must be effected in a very 
different way from that which he has proposed. 

It has been recommended by Mr. Arthur Young so 
to adjust the wages of day-labour as to make them at all 
times equivalent to the purchase of a peck of wheat. 
This quantity, he says, was earned by country labourers 
during a considerable period of the last century, when 
the poor-rates were low, and not granted to assist in the 
maintenance of those who were able to work. And he 
goes on to observe that, "as the labourer would (in this 
case) receive 70 bushels of wheat for 47 weeks' labour, 
exclusive of five weeks of harvest: and as a family of^six 
person t on^umes in a year no more than 48 bushels ; it is 
clear that such wages of labour would cut off" every pre- 
tence of parochial assistance; and of necessity the conclu- 
sion would follow, that all right to it in men thus paid 
should be annihilated for ever."* 

An adjustment of this kind, either enforced by law or 
used as a guide in the distribution of parish assistance 



*Annals of Agriculture, No. 270, p. 91, not^ 



APPENDIX. 2*25 

as' suggested by Mr. Young, would be open to insuper- 
able objections. At particular times it might be the 
means of converting a dearth into a famine. And in its 
general operation, and supposing no change of habits 
among the labouring classes, it vvoul'd be tantamount to 
saying that, under all circumstances, whether the affairs 
of the country were prosperous or adverse; whether 
its resources in iand were still great, or nearly exhaust- 
ed; the population ought to increase exactly at the same 
rate, — a conclusion which involves an impossibility. 

If however this adjustment instead of being enforced 
by law, were produced by the increasing operation of 
the prudential check to marriage, the effect would be to- 
tally different, and in the highest degree beneficial to so- 
ciety. A gradual change in the habits of the labouring 
classes would then effect the necessary retardation in the 
rate of increase, and would proportion the supply of la- 
bour to the effective demand, as society continued to ad- 
vance, not only without the pressure of a diminishing 
quantity of food, but under the enjoyment of an increas- 
ed quantity of conveniences and comforts ; and in the 
progress of cultivation and wealth the condition of the 
lower classes of society would be in a state of constant 
improvement. 

A peck of wheat a day cannot be considered in any 
light as excessive wages. In the early periods of cultiva- 
tion, indeed when corn is low in exchangeable value, 
much more is frequently earned ; but in such a country 
as England, where the price of corn, compared with 
manufactures and foreign commodities, is high, it would 
do much towards placing the great mass of the labour* 
ing classes in a state of comparative comfort and inde- 
pendence ; and it would be extremely desirable, with a. 



226 APPENDIX 

view to tlie virtue and happiness of human society, that 
no land should he taken into cultivation that could not 
pay the labouerr employed upon it to this amount. 

With these wages as the average murimum, all those 
who were unmarried, or being- married, had small fami- 
lies, would be extremely well ofF; ivhile those who had 
large families, though they would unquestionably be sub- 
jected sontetimes to a severe pressure, would in 2:eneral 
be able by the sacrifice of conveniences and comforts, to 
support themselves without parish assistance. And not 
only would the amount and distribution of the wages of 
labour greatly increase the stimulus to industry and econ- 
omy throughout all the working classes of the society, 
and place the great body of them in a very superior situ- 
ation, but it would furnish them with the means of mak- 
ing an effectual demand for a great amount of foreign com- 
modities and domestic manufactures, and thus at the same 
time that it would promote individual and general happi- 
ness, would advance the mei-cantile and manufacturing 
prosperity of the country.* 

Mr. Weyland, however, finds it utterly impossible to 
reconcile the necessity of moral restraint, either with the 
nature of man, or the plain dictates of religion on the 
subject of marriage. Whether the check to population, 
which he would substitute for it, is more consistent with 
the nature of a rational being, the precepts of revelation, 



*The merchants and manufacturers who so loudly clamour fo^ 
dieap corn and low money wages, think only of selling their commo- 
dities abroad, and often forget that they have to find a market for their 
returns at home, which they can never do to any great extent, when 
the money wages of the working classes, and monied incomes in gene- 
ral, are low. One of the principal causes of the check which foreign 
commerce has experienced during the last two or three years, has been 
the great diminution of the home market for foreign produce. 



APPENDIX. 227 

and the benevolence of the Deity, must be letl to the 
judgment of the reader. This check, it is ah'eady known, 
is no other than the unhealthiness and mortality of towns 
and manufactories.* And though [ have never felt any 
difficulty in reconciling to the goodness of the Deity the 
necessity of practising the virtue of moral restraint in a 
state allowed to be a state of discipline and trial ; yet I 
confess that I could make no attempt to reason on the 
subject, if I were obliged to believe, with Mr. Weyland,, 
that a large proportion of the human race was doomed by 
the inscrutable ordinations of Providence to\ premature 
death in large towns. 

If indeed such peculiar unhealthiness and mortality 
were the proper and natural check to the progress of 
population in the advanced stages of society, we should 
justly have reason to apprehend that, by improving the 
healthiness of our towns and manufactories, as we have 
done in England during the last twenty years, we might 
really defeat the designs of Providence. And though I 
have too much respect for Mr. Weyland to suppose that 
he would deprecate all attempts to*diminish the mortality 
of towns, and render manufactories less destructive to 
the health of the children employed in them ; yet cer- 
tainly his principles lead to this conclusion, since his the- 
ory has been completely destroyed by those laudable ef- 
forts which have made the m.ortality of England, a coun- 
try abounding in towns and manufactories, less than tlie 
mortality of Sweden, a country in a state almost purely 
agricultural. 



*With regard to the indisposition to marriage in towns, I do not 
be'cve tliat it is greater than in the country, excejit as far as it arises 
bo L. the greater expense of mjiintaioing a family, and the greater la- 
<*ility of illicit intercourse 



2EB APPENDIX. 

It was my object in the two chapters on Moral Re^, 
siraint, and its Effects on Society, to shew that the evils 
arising from the principle of population were exactly of 
the same nature" as the evils arising from the excessive or 
irregular gratification of the human passions in general ; 
and that from the existence of these evils we had no more 
reason to conclude that the principle of increase was too 
strong for the purpose intended by the Creator, than to 
infer, from the existence of the vices arising from the hu- 
man passions, that these passions required diminution or 
extinction, instead of regulation and direction. 

If this view of the snbject be allowed to be correct, it 
will naturally follow that, notwithstanding the acknow- 
ledged evils occasioned by the principle of pppulation, 
the advantages derived from it under the present consti- 
tution of things "may very greatly overbalance them. 

A slight sketch of the nature of these advantages, as 
far as the main object of the Essay would allow, was gi- 
ven in the two chapters to which I have alluded ; but the 
subject has lately been pursued with considerable ability 
in the Work of Mr. Sumner on the Records of the Crea- 
tion ; and I am happy to refer to it as containing a mas- 
terly developement and completion of views, of which 
only an intimation could be given in the Essay. 

I fully agree with Mr, Sumner as to the beneficial ef- 
fects which result from the principle of popalation, and 
feel entirely convinced that the natural tendency of the 
human race to increase faster than the possible increase 
of the means of subsistence could not be either destroy- 
ed or essentially diminished without diminishing that 
hope of rising and fear of falling in society, so necessa- 
ry to the improvement of the human faculties and the ad- 
vancement of human happineag. But with this convic» 



APPENDIX. 229 

tion OH my mind, I feel no wish to alter the view which I 
have given of the evils arising from the principle of pop- 
ulation. These evils do not lose their name or nature be- 
cause they are overbalanced by good : and to consider 
them in a different light on this account, and cease to call 
them evils, would be as irrational as the objecting to call 
the irregular indalgences of pa sio . vicious, and to affirm 
that they lead to misery, because our passions are the 
main sources of human virtue and happiness. 

I have always considered the principle of population 
as a law peculiarly suited to a state of discipline and tri- 
al. Indeed I believe that, in the whole range of the laws 
of nature with which we are acquainted, not one can be 
pointed out, which in so remarkable a manner tends to 
strengihen and confirm this scriptural view of the state 
of man on earth. And as each individual has the power 
of avoiding the evil consequences to himself and society 
resulting from the principle of population by the practice 
of a virtue clearly dictated to him by the light of nature, 
and sanctioned by revealed religion, it must be allowed 
that the ways of God to man with regard to this great 
law of nature are completely vindicated. 

I have, therefore, certainly felt surprise, as well as re- 
gret, that no inconsiderable part of the objections which 
have been made to the principles and conclusions of the 
Essay on Population has come from persons for whose 
moral and religious character I have so high a respect, 
that it would have been particularly gratifying to me to 
obtain their approbation and sanction This eifect has 
been attributed to some expressions used in the course of 
the work which have been thought too harsh, and not suf- 
ficiently indulgent to the weaknesses of human nature, 
and the feelings of Christian charity. 

Ee 



23a APPENDIX, 

It is probable; that having found the bow bent loo 
much one way, I was induced to bend it too much the 
other, m order to make it straight. But I shall always 
be quite ready to blot out any part of the work which is 
considered by a competent tribunal as having a tendency 
to prevent the bow from becoming finally straight, and to 
impede the progress of truth. In deference to this tri- 
bunal I have already expunged the passages which have 
been most objected to, and I have made some few further 
corrections of the same kind in the present edition. By 
these alterations I hope and believe that the work has 
been improved without impairing its principles. But I 
still trust that whether it is read with or without these 
aiieiations, every reader of candor must acknowledge 
that the practical design uppermost m the mind ot the 
writer, with whatever want of judgment it may have been 
ex'^cuted, is to improve the condition and increase the 
htjjp.ness of the lower classes of society. 



THE END 



